


It's So Easy

by StilesBastille24



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy and Steve hang out - a lot, Billy learns about the Upside Down and is not impressed, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Max wants a brother - even if he's a crappy one, Post-Season 2, Steve and Robin would always be friends - fight me, during the winter that never was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:48:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 33,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StilesBastille24/pseuds/StilesBastille24
Summary: “Why are you sitting over here anyway?" Steve asks. "Haven’t you heard? I’m a social pariah who got beat up by Jonathan Byers for trying to beg Nancy to take me back.”Billy flicks a disgusted look at the table in the far corner where Jonathan and Nancy are eating together. “Seriously? That’s better than having people know I whooped your ass?”"I've faced down actual interdimensional monsters. After that, small town gossip really loses its threat.""Sure, because it's better to be known as the loser that Byers tried to kill twice." Billy stares at Steve who has clearly lost his mind.“Weirdly, I don’t hear you apologizing for nearly killing me,” Steve says pointedly.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 13
Kudos: 260





	1. To Blow Up Your Problems

**Author's Note:**

> This story came from my burning desire to explore 3 ideas.  
> 1\. The friendship that Billy and Steve CLEARLY deserved and that we as fans deserved during season 2.  
> 2\. My hyper-fixation on the only interaction we see between Billy and his dad. Obviously everyone is going to interpret this in their own way, but for my part, I see a teenager who hates his dad, but isn't scared of him. I feel like Billy knows how far he can push with his dad, but he also knows his dad can flip and when he does, his dad gets violent. So this is my interpretation of that.  
> 3\. My obsession with Billy growing up in California in the 1980s. California. In the 1980s. I'm sorry, but there is no way Billy is showing up in Hawkins, Indiana and doesn't just die at how straight, white, and pastel Hawkins is. 
> 
> Title from The Car's Moving In Stereo because it's such an iconic Billy song.

Billy’s head is throbbing, his palms are stinging, and he’s on the verge of puking. He flails a hand, trying to ground himself, because he kind of feels like he’s floating.

“Stop,” a familiar voice warns. “You’re, like, crazy heavy, and I’ve only got a few more balanced steps left in me.”

Billy squints his eyes open, catches sight of big brown eyes, and tries to put his memories in order. He gives up on anything making sense. Time is syrupy; Billy’s floating along, and then he’s set down on his bed. He rolls over, dizzily looks out his window at the dark sky. 

The voice attached to the brown eyes says, “I’m putting a glass of water here. So, you know, hydrate.” 

Billy closes his eyes and passes out.

~*~*~*~

Billy wakes up to afternoon sunlight absolutely burning out his eyes. He rolls over with a groan and smashes his face into his pillow. A weird mosaic of memories floods his mind. His dad screaming at him about Max. Mrs. Wheeler in a fucking bathrobe. Steve Goddamn Harrington hiding his sister. That shitheel Lucas Sinclair. Smashing a plate over Harrington’s head. Max with a needle? Max wielding a nail-studded baseball bat?

Billy staggers out of bed and takes in that he’s wearing the same clothes he’d specifically chosen for his date with Gina that never happened. He stumbles over to his mirror. He takes in the blood crusted beneath his nose and the absolute tangles of his hair. Jerking to the left, Billy looks through his window to the driveway. His dad's car and Susan’s car are gone. 

Billy kicks open his bedroom door. “Max!”

There’s a thump from the room next to his and Billy knows Max has literally fallen out of bed. He hopes she fucking broke her elbow or some shit. He slams his fist against the wall as he stalks to her room. 

He hears Max scramble to throw the lock on her door, but Billy slams it open before she can succeed. Billy smiles dangerously at the stupid pre-teen staring defiantly up at him. “What the fuck happened last night, Maxine?” 

Max crosses her arms over her chest. “You were a major asshole. Again.”

Tension coils so tight beneath Billy’s skin he feels as if he’s about to tear apart. Lips curled in a sneer, Billy rubs at the side of his neck. “I wonder what your mom will think of you stabbing me with a fucking tranquilizer.”

Max pales. “No! Billy, you can’t -”

Billy grabs Max by the shoulder and thrusts her away from him, further into the bedroom. “I can’t, Max? I can’t?” Stalking across the room, he towers over her, breathing raggedly. “I can do whatever the fuck I want, Maxine! And you don’t have one goddamn say in it. Do you hear me?” He shouts the last part at her, so furious he can barely keep himself from punching something. 

Max stands her ground, teeth grit together. “Fuck you, Billy! I told you last night, you leave me and my friends alone! Or I swear, I swear I’ll -” she breaks off, bottom lip trembling. 

“I hate you,” Billy seethes. “You are such a piece of shit, Max. I can’t believe I have to live in this house with you! I can’t believe I have to listen to my dad call you my sister. You are nothing, Max, you hear me? You are fucking nothing!” 

He watches as Max’s crystal blue eyes shimmer with tears and it’s just this side of enough. Billy grabs the door handle as he slams out of the room. He hears Max burst into tears. Satisfaction burns fiery bright in his chest. 

In his room, Billy yanks off his clothes, pitching them into his hamper before dragging on clean ones. He ducks into the bathroom, scrubs his face raw getting the dried blood off, and tangles his hair into a bun. He can’t stand to be in this house another minute. Not even to take a much needed shower. 

“Do not fucking leave this house, Max!” he shouts as he grabs his keys off the key hook he never leaves them on. He can’t remember how he got home but he’s guessing he didn’t drive the Camaro. 

“Fuck you!” Max shouts back in a pitiful whimper. 

Billy sneers. He pushes open the front door, locks it behind him, and jogs down to his car parked on the curb. Billy gets behind the wheel, he’s knees crushed up against his chest. He wasn’t the one in the driver’s seat last night. 

Billy fucks with the seat and mirrors until everything is set back to rights, then he stomps on the gas and tears down the street.

~*~*~*~

Billy has the windows down, the radio’s on so loud it hurts his ears, and he screams along to _Welcome to the Jungle_. He’s never been angrier. He’s never hated Hawkins more. He’s never wished harder that it had been his dad who died, not his mom. He’s never been so close to losing it completely.

Billy skids his car to a stop on the outskirts of Hawkins, where some shitty sign proclaims ‘Leaving Hawkins, Come back real soon!’ Billy leaves the car running, let’s Axel Rose pump through the driver’s side open door. 

Billy grabs the biggest rock he can find on the side of the road and hurls it at the stupid sign. It smashes against the metal, breaking off the bottom corner. He picks up another rock, rockets it toward that shiny, gleeful fucking sign. When he finally stops, breathing hard, the entire outer edges of the sign are ragged with ripped off chunks. 

Still furious, nothing settled inside of him, Billy glares up at Hawkin’s picture perfect blue sky with cottony white clouds and screams, “Fuck Hawkins!”

A flock of starlings startle out of the nearest tree and take off screeching. Billy envies them their ability to leave this piece of shit town. 

On the radio, Guns ‘n Roses rolls into AC/DC. Billy brushes his dirty hands off on the knees of his jeans. Then he gets in the car and loops it around in a U-turn. He drives back into Hawkins.

~*~*~*~

Steve’s sitting and smoking on the front step of his rich bitch house when Billy pulls into the driveway, music thundering from the Camaro’s speakers. Steve jumps up like he’s been expecting Billy. He tosses the cigarette to the ground as he walks to the passenger side. He gets in without being asked.

Up close, Steve looks like he barely made it out of a car wreck. Hot pride curls in Billy’s chest. He did that. He smashed Steve’s face all to hell. “You lose a fight, Harrington?” Billy taunts

Steve tongues at his split lip and probes gently at his black eye. “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that, Hargrove?”

Seeing Max this morning, Billy had been ready to tear her a fucking new one. Seeing Steve’s busted face, Billy’s rage rolls back like a stormy tide, leaving him with his regular levels of fury. He smirks at Steve. “At least I don’t look like shit.” 

Steve makes a face. “I was hoping I had busted your nose.”

Billy touches the bridge of his nose. “I would have been fucking furious.”

Steve scoffs, settling back in the passenger seat like it’s meant for him. “You would have deserved it.”

Billy doesn’t comment. Last night was a nightmare for a number of reasons. But in the fucked up way the world works, the only person who doesn’t make Billy feel like burning down Hawkins is this big haired, pretty boy who wears polos like they aren’t a fashion statement that went out in the fifties. He sifts through what he wants from Steve right now. 

Billy let’s his shoulders relax. Lets his hands unclench from the steering wheel. He can play nice. He used to know how to do that. How to make friends instead of followers. Billy breathes out and turns to Steve. “How’d I get home last night?”

“I drove you. Then I dragged your drugged ass to your bed.” 

Billy revs the engine of the Camaro. “I meant, who drove my car?”

Steve smirks. “Max.” Taking in Billy’s thunderous expression, Steve adds, “Almost crashed it too.”

Billy rakes his teeth against his bottom lip, a quick flash of pain to focus his attention on what matters, not on what a fucking problem his step-sister is. “What the fuck happened last night?”

Steve turns fully to Billy, his face a black and blue nightmare. “I’ll show you.” Danger glitters in his brown eyes as he smiles. 

What had Billy said last night? That Steve had some fire in him after all? He wasn’t wrong. Billy sees his own sharp-edged anger reflected in Steve’s doe eyes. 

This is the Steve Billy has been dying to meet since first hearing about him. Someone to push back as hard as Billy pushes. Someone to try and break his nose when Billy feels like breaking someone else. 

“Show me,” he agrees, jerking the car into reverse.

~*~*~*~

The tunnel is disgusting. Billy wishes he had worn his older pair of Converse instead of the new ones. “This is fucking sick, Harrington.”

It’s disgusting because they are underground surrounded by crawling many legged insects and stringy spider webs. It’s disgusting because Billy is thoroughly creeped out that this tunnel even exists in boring ass Hawkins. 

Steve shrugs. He keeps putting his hand up to his face as if to block a bad smell. But it just smells like wet earth, so Billy doesn’t get it. 

The steady beam of Steve’s flashlight leads them further into the tunnel beneath one of Hawkins’ interchangeable farms. “Why are these even here?” Billy asks. He trails a few steps behind Steve, taking in the strangeness of the tunnel. The space is wide and roundly carved out, the dirt sides riddled with dead roots snarling out to snag at clothes and bare skin. “How far do they go?”

Steve stops and turns around, tilting his flashlight down so it doesn’t shine directly into Billy’s face. “Have you ever seen that weird government building kind of off by the abandoned diner?” 

Billy thinks it over and recalls the deserted looking building surrounded by barbed wire. “Yeah.”

“This leads there.” Steve turns back to the trail and they keep walking. 

“What about the one behind us?” Billy asks. 

“Will Byers drew a map of them. It’s still all over his house. There’s a bunch of tunnels, but I only know that this one goes to Hawkins Lab, the government looking building.” 

“Byers? That’s the house we were at last night, right?” Billy’s thoughts shift to Steve’s black eye. 

“Yeah. You know Jonathan Byers from our grade?” Steve asks. 

Billy makes a face. He wouldn’t be caught dead in a conversation with someone like Jonathan Byers. “I know of him. I know everyone at school says he’s weird and Tommy said he stole your girl.”

Steve’s shoulders hitch up at the mention of the ex-girlfriend. “Yeah, well, Jonathan’s life is weird, I’m not sure if he isn’t just caught up in the weirdness.”

“But he did steal your girl, right?” Billy would never be so forgiving of a guy who took his girlfriend. He’d leave them with a face like Steve’s and spit whenever someone brought them up. 

“Something can’t be stolen if it was never yours.”

“Poetic.” Billy rolls his eyes. “Do you have a martyr complex or something, Harrington? You give a pass to the guy who ditched school with the girl you thought you were dating. And, somehow, you don’t have a bad word to say about that same girl even though the whole school saw her ditch you at the Halloween party?”

“Nancy’s not -” Steve starts fiercely but breaks off. “I’m not talking about this with you”

“Whatever.” Billy honestly doesn’t care. But they are creeping through these dark, earthy tunnels, and he’s bored. “You never said what made these.” He gestures to the tunnels curving around them. 

“Because I’m going to show you.” There’s the edge of danger in Steve’s voice. The same edge that made Billy let Steve direct them to this farm in the first place. Billy isn’t scared of anything in Hawkins. He has nothing but contempt for Hawkins. If there is something here that Steve can show him that will breathe any type of life into this place, Billy needs to see it. 

When they hit the center chamber of the tunnels, Billy’s actually sort of impressed. It’s a large rounded space with tunnels spanning off in multiple directions. The rotting roots or vines or whatever hang down from the ceiling and coil limply against the walls. Steve shines his flashlight around the circular space and Billy turns to follow the light. 

“There,” Steve says, flicking the beam back a few feet to the right. 

Billy walks forward, following the light until something solid nudges against the tip of his Converse. He stares down, tries to see something in the pile of black sludge. It doesn’t look natural, this crumbled or melted pile. Looking at it raises the fine blonde hairs along his arms. 

“What is it?” Billy’s question comes out as a whisper. 

Steve crouches down more than a foot back from where Billy is standing. “That is a Demodog.”

“A what?” Billy reaches up and grabs one of the decayed vines. It breaks off with a snap. He ignores Steve’s protest at touching the vine and he ignores Steve again when he tries to stop Billy from poking at the pile of sludge. 

As Billy traces the vine down the sludge, he discerns a tail, legs, and a thing that he thinks is supposed to be a head. Chills race down his spine. “What is that?” he demands, dropping the stick and backing away.

“Demodog,” Steve repeats warily. 

“I know what a dog looks like, Harrington, and that - “ he jabs a finger empathetically at the disgusting carcass on the ground, “is not a fucking dog.”

“Did you ever see Alien?” Steve asks without segue.

“Yeah. Everyone did,” Billy bites out, annoyed at having his very important point ignored. 

“Remember when that thing burst out of the guy’s chest?”

Billy feels his stomach turn nauseously. “What’s your point?”

“That’s kind of what a Demodog is like. Gross, not really right looking, starts off small, grows into a terrifying, walking, many teethed, monster.”

Billy turns and just stares at Steve. “You are fucking with me.”

Steve waves his flashlight at the carcass. At the decaying vined walls around them. “It’s not like this is some elaborate prank I cooked up just for you, Hargrove.”

Suddenly, Billy wants nothing more than to see the light of day. “I’m out of here, man.” He starts walking in what he hopes is the right direction. 

When Steve tugs on the elbow of his black sweatshirt, Billy allows himself to be steered down the correct tunnel. Steve walks at his side this time, keeping the flashlight beam steady in front of them. 

“Are there more of those - those things?” Billy glaces back over his shoulder. Without the flashlight, the tunnel is nothing but an ominous void.

“I don’t think so. They came in through this, like, tear in the fabric of reality or some shit. While you were busy drooling on the Byers’ living room floor, your kid sister and her dumb friends were with me, down here, trying to fight those things. Another friend of theirs sealed reality back up, I guess, and now Hawkins is back to its regularly scheduled programming,” Steve says casually, like this is a page five story in the newspaper. 

“So, you killed that one?” Billy asks, keeping all emotion out of the question.

Because the thing is, Billy does not want to be impressed by Steve. He might have to believe him about the interdimensional monsters, because seeing is believing and all that shit, but he refuses to let that change how he thinks of Steve Harrington. 

“The kids and I lit the place on fire, so yeah, I guess we killed it.” 

Billy stops walking and after a second, so does Steve. “You brought my stupid step-sister into this death tunnel to light alien monsters on fire. Am I hearing this right, Harrington?”

Steve shines the flashlight into Billy’s eyes until Billy angrily bats it away. “Actually. Your step-sister and her clearly insane friends kidnapped me while I was unconscious due to you beating the shit out of me. When I woke up, your sister was driving the Camaro, my face was covered in band-aids when I should have been at the hospital, and the kids were gearing up to go battle the Demodogs in the tunnel. I didn’t have a choice in joining them. I was trying to make them stay home, but that all went to hell when you showed up and were just an absolute raging douchebag.”

Billy surprises them both by choking out a laugh. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Steve agrees. He points the flashlight in front of them again and they start walking. 

“So who besides you and a bunch of kids knows about this bullshit?”

“The Sheriff, Hopper? Will’s mom. Jonathan, Nancy, the government, and now, you.”

“I fucking knew moving here was a shitty idea,” Billy says grimly. 

Granted he was thinking more of loser midwestern teenagers and shitty step-siblings, not alien monsters and suicidal savior children. But, really, his point still stands. 

They reach the place where they climbed down. Steve turns off the flashlight and sticks it in his back pocket. He turns to look at Billy in the dim light filtering down to them from up on the farm. “Was it worth it? Finding out about last night?”

Billy grabs some of the dead vines and starts hauling himself up out of the tunnel. It’s a good question. Is Billy going to choose to ignore something he’s seen but can’t quite believe? Or is he going to just go with it, let this weirdness change the course of his time in Hawkins?

Billy looks over his shoulder, down at where Steve is hesitating to follow Billy up out of the tunnel. “I mean, I still think you’re a fucking loser, Harrington. But I’ll give you credit for being a loser who lit alien monsters on fire. Maybe I won’t whoop your ass during practice on Monday.”

Beneath him, Steve laughs, a strangely bright sound for how dark the tunnels are below them. “Jesus, don’t do me any favors, Hargrove. I only showed you a whole new world and all that.”

~*~*~*~

Ian Kaligen, from the basketball team, calls on Sunday to ask if Billy is up to shoot hoops at his place. Susan had taken Max with her for some mother-daughter lunch and Billy’s dad is at some co-workers house to watch football. Everyone’s life is continuing as if Billy’s understanding of the world hadn’t shifted yesterday when Billy pulled into Steve’s driveway.

It’s surreal and leaves Billy feeling a little off center, but Billy isn’t about to let that show. “Yeah. See you in ten.” Billy hangs up and changes into a pair of shorts and a long sleeve shirt. It’s cold out, far colder than it ever gets in Los Angeles in early November. 

Billy pulls the Camaro up to the curb outside Ian’s house. Ian is in the driveway taking practice free shots and failing miserably. Billy smirks as he gets out of the car. “How the hell are you even on the team, Kaligen?”

Ian laughs, flipping Billy off as he hurls the ball at him. “Shut the fuck up, man.”

Billy catches the ball and dribbles it up the driveway before taking a shot from an invisible three point line. He makes it with ease. Billy has always been gifted when it came to sports and he’s all for flaunting it. 

Ian picks up the ball and spins it on the tip of his index finger. “Heard you ditched Gina.”

Billy jogs across to Ian and swipes the ball from him. He dribbles between his legs before chucking it hard into Ian’s chest. “Shit came up.”

“Must of. Gina’s a hot ticket. I heard she’s fucking pissed with you.” Ian grins at Billy. Then he aims at the basket and shoots. The ball rebounds off the backboard. 

Billy jumps and grabs it. “She’ll get over it. I’ll ask her out again and she’ll say yes.”

“You sure?” Ian asks. “Maybe the girls in California fell over themselves for you but here in Hawkins -”

“Man, do you want to ask Gina out yourself or what?” Billy asks, cutting through the bullshit. He bounces the ball from hand to hand bored with this conversation. 

Billy doesn’t give a shit about anyone here in Hawkins. If Ian wants to date Gina then he can have at her. Plenty of bitches in the sea, especially when Billy is the newest and hottest thing to come to Hawkins since fucking MTV. 

Ian’s cheeks flush dark red. “No - Jesus, man - I -”

“Grow some balls and ask her out, Kaligen,” Billy scoffs. He turns his back to the hoop and shoots a perfect basket. Billy grew up playing basketball at a city park a few blocks from his place in L.A.. He, Andre, Benji, Jonsey, and Jose were absolute terrors on the court from ages ten to sixteen. Now he gets stuck playing fucking H-O-R-S-E with mediocre players like Ian. Another bullshit facet of Hawkins. Billy despises Hawkins and everything about it. 

“Fuck off,” Ian say gruffly. He crosses to the neighbor’s lawn to pick up the basketball from where it’s rolled after Billy’s shot. He dribbles up and down the driveway before glancing over at Billy. “You’re really cool with me asking her out?”

Billy rolls his eyes. “Do whatever you want, man.” 

“Right.” Ian nods. Then he tosses the ball to Billy and grins. “First to twelve points?”

Billy tosses the ball back. He spreads his legs wide and motions with his hand for Ian to start the game. “You’re going to fucking lose, Kaligen.” He swipes his tongue against his bottom lip. 

It’s not the city park and Ian isn’t nearly as cool as Jose or Andre, but this is the best Hawkins has to offer. 

Billy’s thoughts skitter for just a moment to Steve. Steve who is arguably a much better player than Ian. Second best to Billy, if Billy felt like being fair, which he rarely does. And Billy has seen Steve’s house, the asshole has a half court in his backyard, kiddy corner to his giant pool. 

Annoyed with himself, Billy hip checks Ian and grabs the ball from him.

~*~*~*~

Monday morning, Billy makes up an extra-curricular that requires him to be at school a half hour earlier than usual. If he takes Max with him, she’ll be an hour early to school and even Saint Susan agrees that’s excessive. Billy’s dad might be seething about Billy ‘neglecting his brotherly duties,’ but once Saint Susan decides on something, it’s set in stone.

After the bullshit she pulled on Friday, she’s as good as dead to Billy. There is no way in hell he is going to cart her around like he’s her goddamn chauffeur.

So at seven am, Billy is sitting on the trunk of the Camaro smoking when Steve’s lame BMW pulls into the student parking lot. They aren’t the only ones here at school this early. Other students presumably have valid reasons for being at their pathetic high school at the crack of dawn. Still, when Steve steps out of his car, stretching his long legs, Billy feels like it’s just the two of them and the empty farmland of Hawkins. 

Steve catches sight of Billy and lifts his hand in an awkward wave. Billy feels his life in Hawkins shift towards a new normal. Steve’s just as caught off guard as Billy at their changing orbit. After Friday and Saturday, ‘high school rivals’ feels childish. 

Billy tips two fingers in Steve’s direction before resuming smoking in silence while glowering at the flat horizon of Hawkins. Everything in Hawkins is flat, bland, and lame as fuck. Billy hates it here today as much as he did before he found out that Hawkins had been home, however briefly, to literal killer monsters. 

Steve steps in front Billy, blocking the offensively flat view. 

Billy lifts an unimpressed brow. “What?”

Steve’s face is still a mess. His eye is an ugly purple and noticeably swollen. There’s a healing cut through his eyebrow. His lip is puffy where it split.

“I told you to plant your feet.” Billy smirks at Steve. “Might have landed a better hit then. Broken my nose instead of just bloodying it.” 

Steve huffs a sigh. “Like I would ever want to take advice from you.” 

Billy ignores this. He points his cigarette towards Steve’s face. “What are you going to say about your damage?”

Steve probes at his bruised eye and winces. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” 

“I got beat to hell last year too.”

This is news to Billy. “By who?”

“Jonathan.”

Billy groans on Steve’s behalf. “The guy fucking stole your girl and beat you up? Man, you suck, Harrington.” 

“What can I say,” Steve says piously, “I’m a lover not a fighter.”

Billy cackles at Steve’s idiocy. “No, you’re a fucking dumbass who can’t fight worth a shit.”

Steve waves this off. “Have you been to the Quarry?” 

If it was a girl asking, Billy would think he was being hit on. As it is, Billy gives Steve the once over. He’s wearing a blue sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and a pair of jeans that are obviously name brand but don’t look nearly as good on him as Billy’s jeans always look on him. Still, Billy isn’t lying when he says Steve’s a pretty boy, because he is very pretty and he’s a boy. 

Billy curls his tongue against his teeth, smirking at Steve. “I fucked Trish Donally in the back of the Camaro at the Quarry.”

Steve’s nose scrunches up. “Dude. Her voice is so annoying.”

Billy scoffs, but he knows he sounds more amused than condescending. “Shut the fuck up. She’s hot.”

Steve waffles his hand. “She’s okay looking. But really, that voice is so high pitched and whiny. I sat next to her in Bio last year. Hand to god, listening to her during our “debate day” gave me a migraine. I got a sick note to go home early and everything.”

Billy starts laughing which pisses him off. He doesn’t want to think Steve is funny. He quickly takes a drag of his cigarette to stop himself. “Just because she didn’t want to sleep with you, Harrington, doesn’t make her damaged goods.”

Steve purses his lips, negating Billy’s claim. “At least Kelli Meyers is hot and sounds like Stevie Nicks. All smokey and sexy.” Steve leans back and rests his weight against the Camaro’s trunk, his hip lined up with Billy’s knee. 

“You slept with Kelli Meyers?” Billy asks, grudgingly impressed.

“We dated for like a month last year,” Steve corrects. “Before I met Nancy.”

Billy weighs this information. “Kelli is way hotter than Nancy.”

Steve looks at Billy skeptically. “If you have bad taste, then I guess you’re right.”

Billy flips Steve off. “I’ve asked Kelli out twice and she’s been busy both times.”

“Plenty bitches in the sea, Hargrove,” Steve mocks, “I’ll be sure to save some for you.”

Billy kicks Steve hard in the calf with his shoe. “Fuck you, man. I bet Kelli’s just turned off from guys because of your lousy bedroom performance.”

Steve’s jaw drops. “That is fucking slander! I know you’re still kind of new here, but I wasn’t know as King Steve for my stellar personality.”

Smirking, Billy rolls his eyes. “You lost that title long before I even got here. I’m guessing your downfall started with that not so magical night between the sheets with Kelli Meyers.” Billy takes a drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke in Steve’s face. 

“You’re a real piece of shit, Hargrove,” Steve says as he stands up and starts walking away from the Camaro. “A real piece of shit.” But his lips are curved up in a hazy smile. 

Billy watches him walk away for far too long.

~*~*~*~

At lunch, Billy realizes the only flaw in his plan of Max-Avoidance. Beside him at the table, Tommy is telling a borderline obscene story. Normally, this would hold Billy’s attention. However, his own real life problem is distracting Billy from his less than captivating lunch crew. He still has to drive her home after school.

“Jesus. Look at Harrington.” Tommy elbows Billy hard.

Not appreciating being ripped from his thoughts, Billy slams his elbow into Tommy’s kidney, ignoring him when he starts sputtering and coughing in pain. Across the cafe from them, Steve is sitting by himself eating a sandwich. It’s pathetic. Especially with his face all busted up. 

At their table, Ian and Eric look over at Steve as well. Ian’s mouth twists like he’s trying to picture what would have had to happen to cause the damage. Eric just shrugs and goes back to eating his pizza. 

“What a loser,” Tommy enthuses, once he’s caught his breath again.

Billy takes a moment to evaluate this statement. 

Steve has had more girls than Tommy could ever dream of. Steve is markedly better at basketball than Tommy will ever be. Steve has fought alien monster dogs that Tommy doesn’t even know exist. And when Billy shoves him, Steve is the only person who shoves back. 

It’s like Ian’s driveway all over again. Everyone in Hawkins sucks. Except, possibly, Steve Harrington. 

The legs of Billy’s chair screech against the linoleum as he pushes back from the table and stands up, lunch tray in hand. He crosses the cafeteria, feeling the weight of his classmates’ stares, only proving how fucking useless Hawkins is. His old high school had so many students it would have been impossible to even notice someone switching lunch tables. 

Billy drops his tray down beside Steve’s little brown lunch bag, startling Steve into looking up at him. “The hell, Hargrove?”

Billy sits down. “Why were you asking me about the Quarry? You wanna take me there and show me the backseat of your dumbass BMW?” Billy lowers his eyelashes, biting at the corner of his bottom lip, playing the tease. 

Steve flips him off and steals a handful of fries off Billy’s tray like they sit together all the time. Whatever. The fries are empty carbs with salt anyway. “No, you dickhead. But you said all of Hawkins is farmland. The Quarry clearly isn’t.”

If Steve’s free to take his food, Billy is free to steal his. Upending Steve’s brown bag, Billy fishes through its contents and pawns his apple. He takes a large crunching bite. “Hawkins could have a Hooters on every corner and it would still be the fucking pits.”

Steve squints at him. “Are sex and tits the only two things you think about?”

The easy answer is yes. The real answer is no. Billy spends the majority of time in his head wildly furious at being trapped in Hawkins, trapped with his dad, trapped with two strangers in a small shitty house. Billy’s fucking furious all the time. But he isn’t going to say that to Steve Harrington. 

“I think about my Camaro too.” He smirks at Steve. 

Steve rolls his big Bambi eyes. “Why are you sitting over here anyway? Haven’t you heard? I’m a social pariah who got beat up by Jonathan Byers for trying to beg Nancy to take me back.”

Billy flicks a disgusted look at the table in the far corner where Jonathan and Nancy are eating together. “Seriously? That’s better than having people know I whooped your ass?”

"I've faced down actual interdimensional monsters. After that, small town gossip really loses its threat." 

"Sure, because it's better to be known as the loser that Byers tried to kill twice." Billy stares at Steve who has clearly lost his mind. 

“Weirdly, I don’t hear you apologizing for nearly killing me,” Steve says pointedly. 

“Why would I? You fought back.” 

Steve levels him a look. Billy is unmoved. “Okay, then what about Lucas?”

Billy huffs a sigh. “The kid had it coming. I’ve fucking told Max to stay away from him. If she’s not going to listen to me, then maybe Sinclair will.”

“Well, that makes you disturbingly racist.” Steve inches his seat away from Billy. 

“Oh, fuck off.” Billy takes a drink of his Coke. “I don’t fucking care about Sinclair. But I don’t live in my house alone.”

Steve is silent for a moment before bobbing his head. “My dad’s a real gem when it comes to anyone who isn’t white and rich.” 

“I brought my friend Andre over two years ago, back in Cali,” Billy says, not knowing why he’s sharing this with Steve but somehow letting himself do it anyway, “Andre’s black and I didn’t know my dad was going to be home early. He threw Andre out of the house. Literally grabbed Andre by the back of the shirt and threw him out. Andre hit the ground right off our porch and fucking took off. He came to school the next day with stitches in his knee from where he’d clipped our cement steps. We didn’t talk after that.”

Billy leaves out what his dad did to him. A couple hard shakes on his upper arm. Areas his t-shirts would cover. Blue and purple finger prints that took a week to fade. 

Steve hisses through his teeth. “Jesus, you’re dad is -”

“Yeah, I know,” Billy cuts him off. He feels stupid for having said anything in the first place. 

Steve taps his long fingers against the table before tilting his face in Billy’s direction. “But, uh, not sure how you killing Lucas would be any different than what your dad did to Andre.” 

Something cold and hard settles in Billy’s chest. He grimaces, Steve’s words play on a loop in his head. Sitting with Steve had been such a stupid fucking idea. He was better off with the dredges of Hawkins than its former king. 

Billy grabs his tray and walks off without a word, dumping his lunch as he passes the garbage can, and heading to the parking lot for a smoke before the bell for next period rings. Fuck Steve Harrington and his holier than thou attitude.

~*~*~*~

Because he hasn’t thought of how to ditch Max, Billy waits for her at the end of the day. When she rolls up on her skateboard, her long red hair swaying at her shoulders, she regards him with narrow eyes. “Are you driving me home or not?”

Billy’s thought about it all day. If Billy can’t get out of driving her home from school, he sure as hell is drawing his line in the sand. “You can ride home in the Camaro but you find a new way to get to the arcade. I’m not your brother and I’m sure as hell not your fucking free ride”

Max yanks open the passenger side, dropping her backpack and skateboard into the foot well. She climbs inside and shuts the door. Billy stamps out his cigarette and then takes a seat behind the wheel.

“Why do you always have to be so horrible?” Max asks, glaring hard out the side window. 

“Cry me a fucking river, Maxine,” Billy sneers. He twists the keys in the ignition and Camaro roars to life. “You’re the one who slammed a fucking deadly weapon between my legs. I think that makes you pretty fucking horrible too.”

Max fists her arms across her chest and doesn’t say another word for the rest of the ride. Billy basks in her silence while Cinderella blares through the speakers. 

He ditches Max at the curb to their driveway, then he cranks up the volume and veers back onto the road. He cruises around the half paved and half gravel roads of Hawkins, tracing each of his possible escape routes. He never goes past the city limits though. In the back of his mind, Billy is sure his dad would know if he left. 

At some point, Billy ends up at the Quarry. He pulls his car right up to the danger zone of water. If this was the ocean, his front wheels would be in the path of the incoming tide. But it’s a fucking quarry and the water never moves. 

Billy gets out of the Camaro and walks around to the front of his car. He stretches out on the hood, takes his Marlboros from the front pocket of his jean jack. Flicking his lighter, Billy lights the cigarette and rests his head back on the windshield. 

Billy fiddles with the lighter in his right hand. He scratches his thumb against the spark wheel, watching the flame gasp to life, then die away. Billy snaps his thumb against the wheel. A flame shoots up, burningly hot near Billy’s calloused skin. And then with a slip of his finger, the flame is gone. 

Billy smokes. He fucks around with his lighter. He watches the sun slowly setting above the edge of Quarry’s far cliff edge. He listens as the crunch of gravel announces the arrival of another vehicle. He won’t admit to himself he was waiting for this. 

“Funny finding you here.” 

Billy closes his eyes. “Am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?” Billy parodies.

“Wasn’t funny the first time, isn’t funny the second.”

Steve stretches out on the hood next to Billy, his skinnier limbs knocking against Billy’s. Without asking, Steve pilfers the cigarettes from Billy’s jacket pocket and shakes one out. 

“Lighter?” Steve holds out an open hand. 

Billy waits before handing it over, long enough for Steve to snap his fingers impatiently. Billy smirks, dropping the lighter into Steve’s palm. “Pretty boy is a brat too, huh?”

“Better than a grouchy bastard,” Steve says around the cigarette between his lips.

They smoke quietly, grey trails curling up towards the darkening sky. 

“Why’d you sit with me today?” Steve asks. 

Billy bristles. “Do you want us to have a heart to heart or some shit? Because I would hope you know you came to the wrong fucking guy.” 

“Well, you see, I used to be in your position. I used to sit in that exact same seat with Tommy. Then I stopped being a teenage asshole and started sitting with my girlfriend. Then I got dropped and I started sitting alone mostly. Why would I want to sit with a bunch of jock straps who have no idea that there are fucking monster prowling around Hawkins and killing people? Seemed kind of childish, you know?” Steve speaks to the velvety blue seeping into the sky, never even glancing in Billy’s direction.

Billy feels the weight of the words lift up, drift over them, and try to settle on top of Billy. He bats it away with a sharp exhale of smoke. “You are a teenage asshole, Harrington, before you get comfortable up on your high horse.”

Steve huffs a laugh. “Are you ever real? Or do you just spew bullshit until nothing else comes through?”

Billy rolls his head to the side, glaring at Steve’s profile. Steve is reclined with one hand folded behind his head. “What do you want from me, Harrington? You think because you showed me a dirty tunnel and a rotting alien that suddenly we are best buds?”

Steve taps the filter of his cigarette against his bottom lip. “No,” he says. “I just think it entitles me to some honesty.” 

Billy drops his cigarette to the ground beside the car. “Honesty?” He sits up, hunching over his knees. “I honestly hate it here. I honestly hate Hawkins. I honestly hate my new fake family. I honestly hate everyone here. I honestly wanted to destroy you in Byers’ kitchen.” 

Saying all of it out loud sends a rippling flame of irritation across his shoulder blades. He feels his heart hit a double beat, blood racing through his veins. Billy slides his teeth across his bottom lip, feels the sharp drag against soft skin. 

Beside him, Steve exhales long and slow. Then he sits up and grins at Billy. “Me too.” He flips his hand casually. “Well, I mean, the stuff about Hawkins, not the Byers kitchen. And there are a handful of people here who I like a lot, actually.” 

“Then why’d Little Miss Perfect drop you like a bag of shit?” Billy prods. It had been the talk of the locker room for a week after Halloween. Perfect Nancy Wheeler dumping King Steve for that Weirdo Byers. For Billy, it had been his official crash course in the social politics of Hawkins High. 

“Well,” Steve voice is light and self-mocking, “apparently, I’m bullshit. So, you know. I guess she dropped me because I was a literal bag of shit.”

Billy blinks up at the sky. Then he frowns. “That’s fucked. Shouldn’t Nancy be bullshit since she cheated on you at the Halloween party?”

Steve makes a complicated gesture with his hand. “It doesn’t matter. I was an asshole before I dated Nancy. Even if we broke up and it sucked, I still, like, grew into a better version of me and that isn’t bullshit. So. It’s water under the bridge or whatever.”

“Wow,” Billy says after a beat. “How fucking dumb.”

Steve turns and stares at him. Then he bursts out laughing. “You are such an asshole, Hargrove. Jesus.”

Billy grins, curling his tongue over his teeth. “It’d be a shame if I ever gave the impression of being anything else.”

“So you’re an asshole,” Steve agrees. Then he grows serious, his mouth curving down at the edges. “Is that why you tried to kill Lucas?”

Billy rolls his shoulders, his jean jacket dragging against the fabric of his shirt. “Well,” Billy allows, “I’m also a piece of shit. And I was mad at Max for having snuck out and getting me in a ton of shit with my dad.” He presses his lips together, chews his cheek, then purses his mouth. Steve had said he was entitled to the truth. 

Maybe he was. Billy blows out a hard breath. “No, I wasn’t mad at Max, I was fucking furious with her. And when I get mad, like really mad, I want to break things. But I can’t break Max because I’d get in even more shit at home. So I wanted to break Lucas because it was his fucking fault she was there.”

“And you wanted to break me because . . . ?” Steve asks, his cheek resting on his knees, scrunched up to his chest, his eyes watching Billy in the settling dark. 

Billy knows he shouldn’t be out here trading secrets with Steve Harrington. But for the first time since he came to Hawkins, Billy feels like he can breathe without a chain pinched tight around his chest. “Because Max was at a house with a bunch of guys and you? Because that looks fucked up if you don’t know about aliens? Because breaking a little kid is lame? Because breaking you, pretty boy?” Billy licks his bottom lip. “It felt fucking amazing.”

“Wow,” Steve mocks. He lifts his brows. “Does this mean you’re, like, one of those freaks that gets off on hurting people?”

“No,” Billy says, “I wasn’t getting off thrashing you. But I was pissed off and you were the perfect punching bag.” Billy shrugs. “I’m a piece of shit, remember?”

Steve appears to mull this over. “Shouldn’t you try out for wrestling or something instead? You know, like, healthy outlets for rage.”

“I play basketball,” Billy says flatly. 

“That’s kind of less of a contact sport.” 

Steve is starting to irk Billy with all his questions. Billy wants to shut this conversation down. Get back in his car and drive home. Except he doesn’t want to do that either. He pulls out another cigarette and lights it. 

Steve snatches the pack out of Billy’s hands before he can put it away, taking one for himself. Billy jabs him hard in the side with his elbow. Steve flips him off before grabbing Billy’s lighter as well. 

“I used to skateboard,” Billy finally says. “When I was pissed off, I would try out new tricks. If I got hurt, so much the better.”

Steve sizes Billy up. “That’s kind of fucked up, dude.”

Billy gestures expansively with the hand holding his cigarette. “And so am I, pretty boy, if you hadn’t caught on yet.”

Steve takes a drag. Lets his gaze run over Billy again. “Who would have thought, Billy Hargrove has layers.”

Billy rolls his eyes. “You’re so soft, Harrington. It’s a miracle you don’t get beat up more often.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirks up. “Tell me, Billy, does your teenage angst bullshit have a body count?”

Billy cracks a smirk at Steve’s _Heathers_ reference. “You’re a fucking loser, Harrington.”

Steve grins wide. “Uh-huh, whatever you say, Veronica.”

~*~*~*~

When Billy steps into second period the next day, he can’t help but look to the far left side of the classroom where he knows Steve always sits. Accordingly, Billy has always sat on the far right side. Today, he wavers. Tommy’s in his usual seat, staring at Billy like he’s being weird, which he is, he knows.

Then Steve looks up and rolls his big brown eyes at Billy like Billy is already annoying him without having said anything. Billy’s feet walk him straight to Steve. He drops down in the desk behind him, letting his books slam onto the desktop. 

“Your fucking hair is blocking the blackboard, Harrington.”

Steve turns around in his seat. “Jealousy looks ugly on you, Hargrove.” 

Billy shoves his hand in Steve’s face, vaguely unsure how to deal with Steve. He hasn’t tried to make new friends since middle school, but he’s pretty sure that’s what he’s doing with Steve. 

Across the room, he hears Tommy audibly whisper, “What the fuck?”

Silently, Billy agrees. 

At the front of the room, Mrs. Juratovac assesses the class with narrowed eyes. Then she fixes her grimace on Billy and Steve. “Mr. Harrington, I surely hope Mr. Hargrove will not be a distraction for you. Your grades could hardly bear anymore misunderstandings of basic algebraic principles.”

Naturally, Steve tenses uncomfortably. Naturally, Tommy guffaws loudly. Unnaturally, Billy wants to slash Mrs. Juratovac’s tires after school. 

“Won’t be a problem,” Steve promises meekly.

Mrs. Juratovac’s just ‘hmms’ with clear disapproval. 

By the time they hit independent work, though, Billy has a first hand understanding of Mrs. Juratovac’s scathing remark. 

Billy chews on the cap of his black pen. Duncan Jonesy, back in California, had been shit at math too. He always came to lunch with his math book and a bribery slushy for Billy. Idly, Billy wonders who is helping Jonesy with his Algebra 2 class now. With an exasperated sigh, Billy tugs on a lock of Steve’s unruly hair. 

“Ouch,” Steve bitches, swatting at Billy’s hand. 

“Hey, Einstein, turn around.” Billy shifts his textbook and notebook so Steve can see it more clearly. 

With visible annoyance, Steve turns and glances down at Billy’s pristine work. “I know you’re an asshole, but you don’t have to show off your math genius to me. I already know I’m dumb.”

Billy hisses through his teeth. “Okay, dumbass, then just be quiet while I talk.” Steve shoots him a dirty look, but doesn’t speak. Billy taps his pencil against the first question. “We need to solve for x, right?”

“Duh,” Steve scoffs.

“And you know PEMDAS, right?”

Steve sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. “Is that like the Polygon Theorem?” 

Billy winces. “No, pretty boy, no, it’s not.”

Steve shoulders sag. “Okay, then what is Pem-Dis?”

Billy reaches around Steve and grabs his notebook. It’s covered in scratched out equations and an alarming amount of question marks where solutions should be. He writes out PEMDAS at the bottom half of the page. “Please Excuse My Dumb Ass Sister,” Billy says, pointing to each letter. 

Steve gapes. “Billy, are you high right now?”

Billy shoves Steve’s shoulder. “No, dipshit. It’s a mnemonic device to help you remember parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition subtraction. The order of operations you should perform for equations like this.” He taps the equation in question. 

Steve blinks rapidly. “Holy shit, you are coming at me with all this, like, Latin, and I’m already flunking French so - “

“Stop talking,” Billy interrupts. He writes the equation below PEMDAS. “Okay, so do you have any parenthesis here?”

Steve squints down at the notebook. “Uhm, yeah.”

“Okay, so we are going to start working from there. Now, do you have any exponents?”

Steve chews on his bottom lip. “Which are?”

Billy keeps his sigh internal. “The little carrot guy.”

“Oh!” Steve brightens, looks at the equation and shakes his head. “No.”

“Multiplication?”

It takes the whole period to work Steve through three of the problems, but it’s kind of worth it for how thrilled Steve looks at the end of class. Jonesy had looked the same way after Billy helped him through his math at lunch. 

“I can’t begin to unravel why you’re helping me with my shitty algebra, but I’m way more into it than you shoving me to the ground during practice,” Steve says as they head for their lockers. 

Billy slices a glance at him. “Don’t get all emotional about it, Harrington. You were bringing down the collective GPA of the room. I had to do something before your stupid became catching.” 

“Jesus!” Steve turns and stalls in front of Billy. “Really let me have it, Hargrove.” He grins sharply at Billy and flips him off. 

“Man, I don’t have to, Mrs. J basically bit your dick off in class,” Billy says with a smirk. 

Steve pretends to collapse against the nearest locker before jumping back to his feet and laughing loudly. “Fuck you, Billy. I’m the next Einstein, just you and Mrs. J watch.” Steve turns on his heel and winds his way through the other high schoolers. 

Billy doesn't watch him go. He makes a hard turn to join a group of guys from the basketball team slouching by the school payphones. Then he looks over to where Steve’s ducking into a classroom.

~*~*~*~

At lunch, Steve isn’t sitting alone like Billy expects. Instead there’s a girl with short brown hair sitting with him. Grinning widely at him. Laughing with him.

Billy hates her on instinct. He carries his tray over to their table and drops it down next to Steve’s. He lets himself fall into the seat so that his elbow knocks into Steve’s, causing Steve to spill some of his Coke.

“Asshole,” Steve grouses, grabbing napkins from the middle of the table and wiping up the mess. 

Billy smirks. “Should have planted your feet.” 

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Steve accuses. He glares at Billy before turning to the girl. “This is what I’m talking about, Robin. A total, inconsiderate, asshole.”

Robin’s bright blue eyes rake over Billy and very clearly find him lacking. Billy knew he was right to hate her. “You’re that bag of dicks from the basketball team, right?”

“Do you even go here?” Billy asks, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“She’s a junior,” Steve supplies. “We’ve got French together. And the same lunch period twice a week.”

“Cool,” Billy says sarcastically. He picks up his hamburger and takes a savage bite, staring Robin down. 

“I’m a vegetarian,” she says pointedly.

“Sucks to be you.” Billy takes another aggressive bite.

Steve surprises them both by laughing. “This is so fucked. Like, last year I had an entire table of sports guys I was sitting with and now I’m at a table with a band dork and Hawkins wannabe bad boy.”

Billy is affronted. “I am a bad boy.”

“Billy,” Steve says, pinning him with his big brown eyes, “until this week you drove your sister to and from school like a good big brother. That is not intimidating. That’s, like, wholesome.”

Billy files away that Steve pays enough attention to him to know that he’s not driving Max anymore, and then sets about correcting him. “I’m nobody’s bother. Max is not my sister.”

“Step-sister, right?” Robin asks. “That’s what Dustin said.”

“The fuck is Dustin?” Billy sneers. “My shitty dad married her shitty mom but that does not make us a family.” Billy decides he was an idiot to sit here. He lifts his tray and moves to stand up.

Steve grabs the back of his brown leather bomber jacket and pulls him down into the seat. “Don’t get so touchy. Robin’s just trying to run you off. As the resident bad boy, you aren’t scared of a band dork, are you?” Steve lifts a challenging brow. 

Billy grits his teeth. “You’re both losers.”

“Uh-huh,” Steve allows. He nudges his Coke towards Billy, who grabs it, accepting it as the lame peace offering it’s meant to be. “Robin plays the french horn so . . .”

Billy makes a disgusted face. “Don’t you have any self-preservation instincts? This is a high school in America. You could at least play the fucking flute or something.”

“I’m an individual, you fucking yuppie,” Robin counters. “And the french horn is far more likely to get me a scholarship to college than the flute.”

“Whatever,” Billy scoffs. He hunches back over his hamburger and ignores Steve and Robin as they devolve into creating a hierarchy of musical instrument scholarships.

~*~*~*~

After school, Billy hops up on his trunk and taps out a cigarette. He’s got another fiften minutes of waiting until stupid Max gets out for the day. He’s glowering at the doors of the middle school when someone flicks his ear.

“What the fuck,” he growls, whipping his head around. 

Steve is leaning over the Camaro’s trunk grinning at Billy. “So, what did you think of Robin?”

Billy rolls his eyes, turning back to Hawkins Middle School. “What do you care? She’s your dorky friend, not mine.”

“Aw, come on, Hargrove, tell me your deep, dark, bad boy thoughts.”

Billy hates how Steve crawls under his skin. He feels like their roles have reversed. When Billy got here, he had the upper hand, always ragging on Steve and keeping him off balance. 

Billy wants to be pissed. He wants to rage. Instead, Billy drops his cigarette to the asphalt and grabs Steve in a headlock and muses Steve’s hair until Steve is squawking and bitching at him. Steve slaps at his thighs, trying to smack Billy off of him while Billy just laughs victoriously. 

Finally, Steve gets a good kidney punch in and Billy lets him go with a grunt. Steve’s hair is sticking up like a porcupine and his face is flushed from being held down. “You are such a fucking dick!” Steve tries desperately to comb his fingers through his hair; it does nothing but make it stand up even more. 

“You’re such a brat,” Billy complains, massaging his side where Steve got him good.

“Me?” Steve asks, astonished. “You - You are the biggest brat!”

Billy stares at Steve before bursting out laughing. “That was the lamest comeback ever, man.”

“You’re lame,” Steve mutters, hopping up on the trunk next to Billy. 

When he’s done laughing, Billy glances sideways at Steve. It’s like they’ve got some weird mutual orbit going on. They won’t say what they’re doing, because becoming friends isn’t something you fucking announce like a loser, little girl in elementary school. But that’s what this is, and Billy will never admit it on pain of death, but he kind of likes it. 

He shifts on the trunk to face Steve better. “Do you need something, Harrington?”

“Robin’s got work tonight. I don’t work because I’m a rich bitch.” 

“Okay,” Billy drawls. “Good for you, rich bitch.”

Steve flutters his eyelashes like a southern belle, before he starts laughing at himself. Billy allows himself to smirk at Steve’s idiocy. “What are you doing tonight, Mr. Popularity?” Steve asks. 

“Working out.”

The doors to the middle school open and quickly pour out a disarray of hormonal pre-teens. 

Steve bobs his head. He slides off the trunk, turning to walk backwards. “Okay, later, man.”

Billy looks over at him, confused. “Yeah.” 

Steve twists on his heel and heads to his car. Billy watches him go, wonders what Steve really wanted. Before he comes up with any ideas, a mop of red hair surges through the mass of middle schoolers. Billy scowls as Max weaves her way toward him on her stupid skateboard.

~*~*~*~

Billy hands Max a dripping dish. She dries it efficiently, sets it in the rack, and holds her hand out for another. Billy swishes soapy water around the pot Susan cooked the marinara sauce in. He passes it off to Max.

“You didn’t scrub it.” Max won’t take it from him. She edges sideways to avoid coming into contact with the wet pot. 

“Then you wash the fucking dishes,” Billy bitches. “You always dry. It’s fucking bullshit.”

“Just scrub it, Billy.” She jabs her elbow towards the pot. “Look, there’s sauce caked on it still.”

He waggles the pot in her direction; she squeals and jerks backwards. Billy barks out a laugh at her discomfort. “So wash it yourself, Maxine.”

“You know I hate old, wet food!” She props her hands on her hips. “Mom said as long as I dry, we’re even.”

“I’m just trying to help you be ready to take care of yourself, Maxine” Billy says, syrupy sweet. “I’m not always going to be around to wash your nasty, food crusted dishes.” 

“Stop being an asshole and wash the dish!” Max flips him off. 

“Nah, I think I’m good here.” Billy drops the pot back into the sink and heads back out to the living room.

“Billy!” Max shouts after him. 

Susan and Neil are sitting at the table still, talking and making fucking moon eyes at each other. But at Max’s shout, his dad fixes him with a black look. “What’s wrong with Max, Billy?”

“She doesn’t want to dry the last dish,” Billy says with a shrug. It’s been a quiet night at the Mayfair-Hargrove residence. He doesn’t have to worry about his dad’s temper right now. 

“Max, honey,” Susan calls to her daughter. “Finish up the dishes so we can watch _Golden Girls_.” 

Billy smirks, victorious. Max can be such a whining bitch. It feels fucking great to get one over on her. Because she’ll have to wash the stupid pot out herself or miss out on four old biddies making dates and talking about cheesecake. 

He’s just shut the door to his room when the doorbell rings. Billy looks reflexively over his shoulder at the sound. The Mayfair-Hargrove’s don’t have a lot of visitors. Billy would never invite any of the guys from school over. Their house is in the distinctly shabby part of Hawkins and he isn’t going to hang around where Max is. 

“Billy,” his dad calls sharply. 

Grinding his teeth, because is it really that much to ask for to have one fucking hour to himself in this house, Billy goes to answer the door. When he pulls it open, ready to tell the dictionary salesman or who the fuck ever to get off his porch, he instead stares into big brown eyes and pristinely styled hair. 

“Harrington?” Billy asks, slack jawed. 

“Homework,” Steve announces, like this is a thing they planned. And then, Steve edges forward, like he wants to come into Billy’s house. 

Which is insane. Billy blinks. Then he tries to put the situation into a perspective that makes sense. “Did your car break down or something?”

Steve’s nose crinkles up in confusion. “Uh, no.” He glances over his shoulder at his, apparently, working BMW. He lifts up his hands where he’s holding his math textbook and a notebook. “So, like, can I come in?”

“To . . . do math homework?” Billy asks, slowly. 

Steve nods. A grin quirks the side of his mouth. “Although, you seemed a lot more knowledgeable in class than you do right now, so maybe I should have gone to Robin instead?”

“You want to come into my house so I can help you with your math homework?” Billy repeats. He needs to be sure he is understanding the chain of events happening right now. 

“Is that okay?” Steve peers over Billy’s shoulder. “Or, are you, like, entertaining Trish Donally or something?” Steve grins at Billy, then pitches his voice to an impossibly high octave. “Like, oh my gosh, Billy!” Steve bats his eyelashes furiously.

Billy chokes on air, coughs out a semi-hysterical laugh, and shoves Steve off his porch before anything more bizarre can happen. “Fuck off, Harrington, I’m busy.”

“Billy!” Curved fingers clench around his shoulder, jerking him back a step. “You can either watch your language or you can find a new roof to sleep under.” His dad’s voice is like broken glass dragging against Billy’s bare skin. 

Billy tenses his shoulders but doesn't pull away, willing himself not to react. “Sorry, sir.”

Across from him, Steve’s gaze is bouncing back and forth between Billy and his dad. Then his dad is shoving his free hand in Steve’s direction. “Neil Hargrove. And you are?”

“Uh,” Steve clears his throat, tucks his books under his left arm, and holds out his right hand, “Steve Harrington.”

Neil nods. “From the basketball team.” He squeezes Billy’s shoulder painfully. “Are you going to invite your friend in, Billy, or make him stand on the porch all night?”

Steve laughs, clearly trying to make things seem normal, but it’s nothing like his normal laugh and it sets Billy’s teeth on edge. 

“No,” Billy says sharply. He needs to bullshit his way through this before it turns into something he can't handle. “Steve’s picking me up. We’re doing a study thing at his place for tomorrow’s test. Right, Steve?”

“Right,” Steve says immediately, not missing a beat. 

“Why aren’t you taking the Camaro? Is there something wrong with it?” His dad grips tightens until Billy knows he'll bruise if his dad doesn't let up. 

“Nothing,” Billy snaps, pissed. He shakes off his dad’s grip and steps outside. “Nothing’s wrong with the Camaro.” 

His dad knows, he knows that car means more to Billy than anything else. Nothing has ever happened to the Camaro that Billy could prevent or that he hadn’t been able to fix himself. Neil’s just being a dick, like he always is, and if Billy doesn’t get out of here soon, he’s going to say something stupid, ruining the quiet night. 

“Actually,” Steve interjects, mercifully forcing this horrible moment to end, “I wanted to take Billy for a spin in my car. Show him what he’s missing out on.” Steve flashes his most disarming smile. 

It does nothing to ease the tension sparking between Billy and his dad. “Be home at nine,” Neil instructs. 

“Yeah, nine,” Billy repeats. He ducks past his dad to grab his bomber jacket and leads the way to Steve’s car, Steve jogging a few steps to catch up. 

“Jesus,” Steve mutters so only Billy will hear him, “I think our dads would have whole reams of advice on how to raise their shithead sons. And none of it would make it on the New York Times bestseller list.” 

For some reason, Steve’s dumb comment cuts through the tension aching in Billy’s chest. He shakes out his shoulders, forces himself to relax, and kicks his Converse against Steve’s ankle. Steve trips and scowls at Billy, who is fully unrepentant. “The homework isn’t even that hard, Harrington.”

“Yeah, well, I had to look up how to spell pneumonia and when I did, it didn’t help me understand anything about parentheses or carrots.” Steve shoves his textbook and notebook into Billy’s chest. “Now hold those and go look pretty in my passenger seat.”

Billy scoffs but takes the books instead of letting them drop. He climbs into Steve’s lame car, shoving the seat all the way back so he can stretch out his legs obnoxiously. Billy knows his personality is loud and grating and he doesn’t believe in shying away from that, because that’s just who the fuck Billy is. 

Steve turns on the car and the radio wails out some awful Flocking Seagulls. Billy groans and quickly flicks through the channels to his favorite station. Motley Crue is playing and Billy sits back satisfied, before tossing Steve’s books unceremoniously into the back seat. 

“I said hold those,” Steve bitches. 

“I’m sitting pretty, Harrington. You got one out of two, count yourself lucky.” Billy rolls down his window and enjoys the cool air as it shifts his curls away from his face.

~*~*~*~

Steve’s house is nothing like Billy’s house. He knew that already, having been to Tommy’s house and Ian’s and Eric’s. They all live on the ‘good’ side of Hawkins. But they don’t live on the rich side, like Steve.

Steve’s house is ridiculous. He hadn’t really paid attention to it last Saturday, but now, he stands outside Steve’s car staring up at it. It’s got a whole fucking forest behind it. Unreal. 

“How many fucking rooms does this place have?”

“Four bedrooms, three baths, and a finished basement,” Steve recites. He slams his school books back into Billy’s chest for him to carry.

Billy accepts them more out of dazed instinct than anything else. “Do you have a, like, fucking butler or some shit?” 

“We have a helper,” Steve says. “She, like, dusts and stuff. And makes food.”

“Holy shit,” Billy says in disbelief. “King Steve and his Palace.”

Steve turns around, walking backwards toward his house. He rolls his eyes dramatically. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“I’m not,” Billy defends. “I’m just a fucking pauper, King Steve. Please, sir, can I have some more?” he simpers, books held out like he’s waiting for Steve to pile more on top of them. 

“If they hadn’t made that god awful musical, I wouldn’t even get that reference, shithead.” Steve jabs a finger in his direction. “We had to read it for English, obviously that wasn’t going to happen. But my ass got saved by that movie. I got a B- on my essay.”

Steve pours forth all this information while Billy’s still trying to take in the sheer ridiculous divide between his economic status and Steve’s. “Does your housekeeper have to wear one of those little french maid outfits?”

Steve’s eyes bug. “Of course not! This isn’t, like, 1900s England.”

Billy shrugs. “I dunno, Harrington. You could be a feudal king for all I know.” Then he smirks. “So, what kind of whiskey does your dad drink?”

~*~*~*~

Steve refuses to offer up the good stuff, but he does crack open a beer for each of them. They sit at Steve’s pretentiously large dining room table in it’s own very fancy dining room and spread out his math stuff.

“PEMDAS,” Billy says for the third time. “Please excuse my dumbass sister. It’s not that hard, Harrington.”

“I know,” Steve whines, “but everything math related just turns to mush in my brain, I swear.” 

Billy shrugs and takes a drink of his beer. “Whatever, man. Just remember it the day of the test and you’re golden. We can write it on your arm or some shit.”

“Oh fuck, do we really have a test coming up?” Steve looks up, distressed, his perfect hair disheveled. “I thought you were just saying that to get your dad off your back.”

Billy reaches out and takes Steve’s pencil, erasing another incorrect equation. “Not this week, but yeah, eventually she’s going to test us. That’s how school works, Steve.”

Steve drops his head dramatically to the table while Billy corrects the equation, messing up his handwriting enough so it looks similar to Steve’s messy scrawl. “How is it fair that you are good at this stuff and I’m not?”

“Some people are just born with it all, pretty boy,” Billy teases. He leans back in his chair and surveys the thick drapes over the windows and actual china in the china cabinet. “You got the money, I got the brains and looks and everything else that counts.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Steve says, sitting upright and laughing. “Before you swaggered in with your gross, long, California surfer hair, I was top dog at Hawkins High.”

“I’ll gut you in your sleep,” Billy promises. “My hair is nothing but sunshine and masculinity.”

Steve busts up laughing. “Do you think they can see your ego from space, Hargrove?”

“They’d be fucking blessed if they could.” Billy grins.

He gets that twisty feeling again. The one that says it shouldn’t be this easy to be friends with Steve. A guy who last weekend, Billy attempted to destroy. But Steve’s not like the rest of this shitty town. He’s too pretty by far and he’s got edges where everyone else has only softness. 

The next hour plays out the same way. Steve trying and failing to do his math, Billy masking his handwriting to complete the rest of the equations for Steve, and shooting barbs at each other that more often than not lead to laughter. It’s weird. It’s good.

~*~*~*~

When Steve hops up next to Billy on the trunk of the Camaro the next morning and holds out his hand for a lighter, it seems like the most normal thing that’s happened to Billy since he came to Hawkins.

Billy snaps the spark wheel and holds the flame out to Steve. “Why do you get here so early?”

Steve takes a puff before answering. “My house is either empty or filled with allegations of divorce proceedings. Either way, I think it’s preferable to hang out here instead.”

It’s weird to Billy that with his perfect house, perfect clothes, and perfect face, Steve’s life is still just as much of a shitshow as the next schmucks. “Sucks.”

“Yep,” Steve agrees. He tilts a look at Billy. “How’d you end up here?”

“I lied to get out of taking Max to school.”

“No, I meant Hawkins.”

Billy makes a face. “Susan wanted to be closer to her sister or some shit and I had just gotten cut from the basketball team after missing too many practices. Voila, Hawkins.”

Steve frowns. “But you’re good at basketball.”

Billy looks heavenward but doesn’t find any answers in the soft, puffy clouds lazing across the sky. “I liked skateboarding and surfing more.”

“Oh.” Steve blinks like this is a novel idea. “Yeah, California.” He shakes his head. “And all we’ve got is slushy winters.”

Billy laughs dryly. “Awesome.”

Steve reaches down and pulls his backpack up into his lap. “You aren’t taking French are you?”

“No hables francés,” Billy answers. 

Steve groans. “Robin’s got band practice this morning so I’m fucked on the homework.”

Billy tugs Steve’s backpack over. He rifles through it and pulls out the french book with a slim sheet of notebook paper wedged between the pages. A few minutes later he hands the completed sheet back to Steve.

“It’s probably not perfect, but the Romance languages have got enough similarities you should still do okay.” 

Steve’s mouth gapes open. He shuts it with an audible click. “Dude, why did you have to be such a dick when you moved here? You could have been saving me hours of homework headaches!” 

“You’re such a loser, Harrington. I can’t believe I ever thought you were king of anything,” Billy laughs. Then he grabs Steve in a headlock and fucks with his hair until it’s a mess.

Steve’s screeching and flailing at him the whole time, and when he surfaces he looks like a porcupine. Angrily, Steve frantically finger combs at his hair. “What was I saying? You’re still a fucking dick! No wonder Kelli won’t go out with you.”

“Don’t have a coronary,” Billy mocks. ”Your hair still looks Harrington perfect.” And it does, all tousled and voluminous. Billy would be jealous if his own hair wasn’t fucking perfection. Sunshine and masculinity.

“What’s with you and the headlocks,” Steve complains. “Like, can’t you just strangle me instead.”

“If I get rid of you too soon it’ll be suspicious,” Billy confides, sliding off the back of the Camaro. “Couple more headlocks and it’ll look convincing when you suffocate from being too weak to break my hold.”

Steve slaps Billy in the back of the head. “You’re so fucked up, man,” he laughs.

Billy winks. “Now don’t go giving away all my secrets.”

They push and shove each other to the front of the school where Billy trips Steve and takes off down the hall for his first period before Steve can retaliate.

~*~*~*~

At lunch, Billy doesn’t think twice before setting his lunch down at Steve’s table. He doesn’t even look in the direction of Tommy and the other jocks. He just drops down next to Steve, takes his coke, hands over his fries, and ignores Robin’s existence.

Steve and Robin are caught up in some discussion about a possible mall coming to Hawkins next year. Steve’s excited by the prospect of actual culture coming to Hawkins, not that he puts it that way exactly.

“Name brand clothes,” he enunciates carefully, like he thinks Robin missed this point the first time around. 

“Corporate annihilation,” Robin retorts, waving her carrot stick dramatically. 

Billy won’t believe in this hypothetical mall until he sees it. He eats his chicken tenders in silence, slathering them in an unnecessary but delicious amount of ketchup. 

At some point the conversation must change because Robin is laughing and tapping a pencil against Steve’s open chemistry book. “No, dingus, that is so not the right answer.”

Billy slants a look in the direction of Steve’s latest homework disaster. Billy took Chem in tenth grade back in Cali so he gets to skip that class at Hawkins. Instead he’s in some weird Honors Biology course with a bunch of fucking science nerds he never sees outside the classroom labs. He wouldn’t be surprised if he found them all living and sleeping in the hollows beneath the lab tables. 

“Then help me fix it,” Steve begs Robin. “I’ll owe you big time.”

She rolls her eyes. “What do you even have to offer, Steve?”

“I’ll drive you to school,” he barters.

“Pass.”

“I’ll take you to the drive-in this weekend to see that movie you can’t stop talking about.”

“I already got tickets.”

“Oh my god, Robin!” Steve whines. 

Billy narrows his eyes at Robin. She’s laughing merrily, clearly enjoying baiting Steve. And Billy - Billy is going to shut that shit down. 

He grabs Steve’s chem book and shoves his tray away so he can look at the problems. Robin and Steve fall eerily silent as Billy gets to work crossing out Steve’s sorry attempts and writing in the correct answers in his fake Steve handwriting. 

He passes it back to Steve when he’s finished and watches as Robin runs her eyes over the page. He smiles vindictively when she glares at him. 

“He’s not going to learn anything if you do it for him,” she bitches.

“He’s never going to use this stuff anyway. What the fuck do any of us care about Chemistry?” Billy challenges. 

Steve punches Billy hard in the arm and Billy thinks he’s about to be yelled at for bailing Steve out yet again, when instead Steve grabs him in a headlock and starts scrubbing the ever living shit out of his curls.

“Fuck! Fuck off, Harrington!” Billy shouts, scrambling quickly up and away from Steve’s grasp. “The fuck is wrong with you!”

Steve is grinning ecstatically. “Dude! Thank fuck you came to Hawkins. Mr. Dundle can kiss my ass!”

Billy swings his gaze to Robin for an explanation but she’s still glaring daggers at him. “Mr. Dundle?” Billy asks, tentatively sitting back down, but keeping a wary eye on Steve in case he plans on attacking again. 

“Yeah! He said he was gonna get me benched from basketball if I couldn’t maintain my C in his class,” Steve explains. He brandishes the completed homework at Billy. “But he can’t if I’m turning in my homework correct for once.”

Billy boggles at Steve. “Is there any class you’re not barely surviving?”

“History,” Steve says readily. “I’m aces at history.”

“It’s true,” Robin says sagely before slurping her chocolate milk. 

“Right.” He slides his gaze from Robin to Steve. Billy runs his fingers through his hair and detangles the curls Steve managed to fuck up. “But if you touch my hair again, you’re dead, Steve. I won’t help you with shit.”

Steve holds up his hands. “I won’t touch a single curl,” he promises. Then he smiles devilishly. “Even if it was the softest hair I’ve ever felt.”

Billy sniffs indifferently. “Of course it was. Sunshine and masculinity, dipshit.” 

Billy ignores the warm glow in his stomach. It’s from the chicken tenders. They were fucking delicious.

~*~*~*~

After practice, Billy follows Steve out to the parking lot. “I’m just saying,” Steve says, continuing their argument from the locker room, “Susanna Hoffs is way hotter than Heather Locklear.”

Billy shoves Steve’s shoulder with his own. “You’re stupid, Harrington. No wonder you went out with Wheeler. Locklear is in a completely different league than Hoffs. It’s so fucking obvious.”

“Well, at least we’ll never be fighting over the same girl,” Steve says. “Not that Heather Locklear would go for you anyway.”

“The fuck does that mean,” Billy demands, offended on principle. 

Steve smirks. “Come on, Billy. You’re all angsty and dickish. Heather would want a guy who's charming and suave.”

“I’m charming,” Billy snaps.

Steve laughs loudly. “To fucking who?”

“Not you, obviously,” Billy snarks. “I don’t need to be charming to assholes like you, Harrington. My sheer animal magnetism is enough to bowl over guys like you.”

Steve keeps laughing. “Animal magnetism! Where do you even come up with this shit? I hated you at first sight, Billy. Nothing magnetic about that.”

Billy slaps a hand over his heart. “You wound me, really, pretty boy.” He drops his hand and keeps walking next to Steve. “Besides, I never said being an asshole wasn’t part of my charm.”

“Now that,” Steve says, turning to point at Billy, “that’s way more on pace.”

Billy flaps this away. “And I don’t know who you’re calling charming, anyway. Because you weren’t exactly suave when you were hiding out Max.”

“You caught me on an off day,” Steve says easily. “Speaking of, you got anything going on tonight?”

“I’m not helping you with your homework every night,” Billy complains. “Just bring it in the morning and we can do it before school starts.”

Steve nods eagerly. “Done deal. But I wasn’t talking about that anyway. So, are you? Busy, I mean?”

Billy shrugs, not wanting to seem too available, because until this week he did have a social life that didn’t revolve around Steve Harrington. It’s a weird thought and makes him step up his pace to put some distance between him and Steve. 

“Might call up Jillian. She was looking good in that skirt today.”

Steve pauses, clearly pulling up the mental image of Jillian and her neon pink skirt. He nods after a moment. “Yeah, she was.” Then he looks at Billy, tilting his head to the side like a fucking Yorkie. “Catch you later, Hargrove.”

Billy gives him a look, because Steve’s being weird, but Steve doesn’t offer anything else. “Later,” Billy agrees. 

They separate at Steve’s BMW and Billy goes to lean up against the Camaro and wait for Max.

~*~*~*~

It’s four-thirty and Max has been suspiciously silent in her room since they got home. Billy never trusts Max, especially when she’s quiet. Billy’s got a damp towel wrapped around his waist as he paws through his dresser for the right pair of jeans to wear. He’s thinking about going to the pool hall that the rest of the high schoolers slum at during the week.

Jillian Connor has been looking especially hot the past few days. Billy knows she’s a Sheady’s Pool Hall regular. He also knows she’s been giving him long looks in Spanish. 

Billy drops the towel, swapping it for a pair of boxer briefs. He’s in the middle of tugging on his most flattering and tight jeans when the phone rings. He grimaces. Without a doubt, it’s his dad or Susan calling to say they’ll be late, as usual. 

What the fuck his dad and step-mom do on a daily basis is beyond Billy. All he knows is that it regularly involves not getting home until eight or nine pm. He’d bet drug dealers except he knows Susan is too straight laced for that. His dad’s also kind of a tight ass, so something radical like drugs doesn’t really match up there either. 

“Get the phone, Max!” Billy yells. 

“Asshole!” she yells back. 

Billy makes a face and flips her off even though she can’t see him. Then he goes to his closet and rifles through his shirts until he finds a button up that will look best with half the buttons undone. He slips it up his arms and starts the buttons halfway down. 

A knock at his bedroom door makes Billy stop and stare at the hard wood. “What?”

“It’s for you.”

He exhales harshly. “Tell your mom I’ll babysit you like I do every fucking night. Then sneak out your window like you do every single night. Just be back before eight, shithead.”

“No. It’s Steve.” 

Billy stares incredulously at the door. Then he yanks it open and shoves Max out of the way. He heads into the kitchen and picks up the phone from where Max’s set it on the countertop. “Yeah?”

“You said you weren’t busy tonight, right?” Steve’s voice asks from down the line. 

“I might be,” Billy counters. 

“Well,” Steve says after a pause, “want to see some weird Hawkins shit instead?”

It’s not the stellar offer Steve is clearly trying to make it sound like. Still. Billy thinks of creepy vined tunnels and ashy piles of mush. “What’s in it for me?”

“Seeing weird stuff?” Without seeing him, Billy knows Steve’s brow is crinkled up in confusion. “Like I just said? Were you listening?”

“I want free beer,” Billy negotiates.

Steve huffs a sigh. “Sure, whatever. Just come to the Byers’ place. Bring Max.”

Billy looks over his shoulder and finds Max ready to go. She’s got her skateboard under one arm and his car keys hanging from the index finger of her other hand. 

“Why?”

“The weird shit only happens when the kids are around,” Steve says. “Are you coming or what? If not, I’m going to need to call up some other douchebag and -”

“I’m coming,” Billy cuts him off. And it’s not that he’s jealous of the idea of Steve sharing the weird Hawkins shit with someone else. It’s just, if Max is going to be there, Billy could probably save his own ass by keeping her out of trouble that will inevitably become his own. 

“Cool,” Steve says. There’s a click as he hangs up.

Billy rests the phone in its cradle. He jots a quick note to his dad that he and Max went to do homework at a friend’s. Then he stalks over to Max and snatches the keys from her. 

She chases him out of the house and into the car. Billy revs the engine before backing out with a squeal of tires. The speakers blare Foreigner and Billy has a brief moment where he thinks he’ll be able to make the drive without having to acknowledge Max’s existence. 

“So, what,” Max says, shattering this dream, “you’re just going to hate me forever now?”

“I already did,” Billy shoots back. 

Max’s shoulders tense. “That’s not fair.”

Billy rolls his eyes and turns the volume up louder. 

Max twists to face away from him and Billy thinks the conversation is over for good. Then she twists back around, staring fixedly at the side of his face. “Why do you always have to be so awful?”

He glances over at her and sneers. “Because I’m a monster.”

Max’s face crumples the way it always does when he lands a well placed verbal hit. “You don’t even know me! And - and you just treat me like shit. And I didn’t even do anything to you -”

Billy cuts that bullshit right in half. “You fucking stabbed me with a tranquilizer.” 

“Because you were being insane! And awful! You tried to kill Lucas! Then you nearly beat Steve to death! Actual death. Like a complete psychopath.”

“Maybe I am one,” he challenges, not giving a shit about her stupid drama. “I told you to stay away from that kid. Do you know what my dad would do if he saw you with him? He’d fucking ream me out over it. It would be my fault you were going with a black kid.”

“What is wrong with you?” Max shouts, throwing her arms up. “So what if Lucas is black, you big fucking racist!”

Billy jerks the steering wheel to the left sending them swerving onto the shoulder. He slams on the breaks, gravel spitting out clouds in the rearview mirror. Enough is fucking enough. Billy is kind of sick of being called a racist. He’s an asshole, but in California, out of his core four friends, Andre was black, Jonsey was half-Chinese, and Jose’s parents were straight from Mexico. 

Billy grits his teeth as he enunciates slowly, “I don’t give a single shit if Lucas is black, white, or fucking rainbow. But Neil Hargrove would take brass knuckles to my jaw if he caught his precious step-daughter so much as looking at someone like that.” 

He cuts a look at Max and finds her gaping at him. Her big blue eyes saucer sized in her pale, freckled face. She’s so fucking stupid. It’s like they don’t even live in the same house. Like she lives in one where Billy doesn’t get smacked around for all of her little fucks up and all of his own. 

“But - but my mom -” Max says, rallying.

“You’re mom what?” Billy snaps. “I haven’t seen Saint Susan step in once when my dad wants to remind me whose roof I’m living under.”

“That’s not the same,” Max says adamant. 

Billy turns to glare at her. “I am really fucking aware that Susan and you are not my family. So I’m not exactly expecting you or Susan to give a shit that I’m my dad’s personal punching bag. But I fucking care and I’m not going to let you fuck that up for me by bringing Lucas over to the house.” 

Max sits in shocked silence and Billy could not care less. He starts the car again and pulls back onto the road. It’s empty like all the roads in Hawkins seem to be. He hates how barren this town is. 

Eventually, Max reaches for the volume and turns it down. “You don’t have to protect me,” she says. 

Billy fights the urge to rub at his temples. “You are so fucking stupid. I am not protecting you, Maxine,” he says snidely. “I’m looking out for myself. Neil isn’t going to blame Susan’s precious daughter for affiliating with what Neil calls ‘the wrong type.’ He’s going to blame his piece of shit son. Like he always does. Anytime you do something stupid. And then he’ll take a hit, not hard enough to mark, because that would be sloppy. But hard enough that his piece of shit son will remember not to defy him next time.” 

Max sinks silently against the passenger seat. Her eyes shimmer with tears and Billy feels viciously vindicated. He hopes she does cry. He hopes she’s scared. Of him, his dad, he doesn’t care which. 

He snaps the volume back to painful levels. The sun is starting it’s slow descent because it’s fall and daylight dies before six as an affirmation of how shitty this midwestern town is. It takes ten more silent minutes to reach the Byers’ winding driveway.

~*~*~*~

Steve’s car is parked up near the house. Lingering on the porch and further up on the grass are a bunch of kids Billy vaguely recalls from the last time he was here. He has no fond memories of any of them. Billy is very much doubting his decision to come here at all, especially with Steve nowhere in sight.

Billy parks his Camaro at the halfway point of the driveway, refusing to commit to staying. Max barely waits for the car to come to a full stop before yanking open the door and racing over to her friends. Billy is much more sedate in his exit. 

He eyes the kids as he crosses to them. One black kid - Lucas. The weird undead kid that’s related to Byers. Wheelers’ younger brother. And some idiot with no front teeth. 

There’s also a girl with short curly brown hair who stares Billy straight in the face. "Mouth breather," she decrees scathingly. 

Billy takes an intimidating step toward her. "What did you just say to me?" Because there is no way this random little kid just insulted him. 

She narrows her eyes. "Mouth - breather,” she repeats slowly. 

Billy is instantly over his desire to see anything weird in Hawkins. “Fuck this.” He turns on the heel of his Converse to head back to his car. 

Max calls after him, "It's El's way of calling you an asshole, Billy." 

“Enjoy skating home, Maxine,” Billy taunts without turning around. Someone grabs his wrist. Billy whips back around ready to push his step-sister into the dirt, but it’s Steve at his side. 

"Hey, now,” Steve says hurriedly. “Let's not be too hasty. This is your one and only chance to see a non-mushy alien creature, right here in cozy ole Hawkins." 

"You can keep it." Billy jerks his wrist out of Steve's grasp. "I'm not helping the brat brigade with shit." 

"Then help the babysitter," Steve pleads. "Because that thing weighs a fuck ton and I can barely rely on these shitheads to dig a decent hole, let alone carry the damn alien a half mile into the woods." 

Billy hesitates and that’s all it takes for Steve to start dragging him back up the driveway. “Hey, I promised you weird Hawkins’ shit, right? And I always deliver on my promises.”

“Why isn’t girl wonder helping you with this instead?” Billy asks, noting Robin’s absence.

Steve rubs the back of his neck. “She - uh - doesn’t know about the weirder side of Hawkins.”

“Lucky me,” Billy says flatly.

The kid with missing teeth narrows his eyes in Billy’s direction. “We don’t like you,” he calls out to them.

Billy looks at Steve. “Where’s my beer?”

“I said,” No Teeth starts again, “we don’t like you.”

“Yeah,” Billy drawls, “I heard you the first time. Just so happens I don’t give a shit what you or your little shithead friends think.” He turns to Steve. “Beer.”

Steve gives him this weird smile like Billy has performed a neat trick. It makes his skin feel itchy and Billy is thinking he’s made a really bad call with all of this. “It’s in the fridge. Just like the alien corpse.”

“Technically, the Demodog is in the freezer,” Byers’ brother corrects shyly.

“Jesus,” Billy mutters, following after Steve as he leads them into the Byers’ house. 

Billy is rather appreciative of the fact the Byers’ house is a bigger shit hole than his own home. When Billy gets out of Hawkins he’s never going to live like this. He doesn’t care what he has to do, but he’s going to have a nice house and he’s going to be able to afford the brand name clothes and hair products he wants. And he’s going to have a big ass tape deck player. 

“So,” Steve turns and makes jazz hands, “fair warning, this thing is fucking disgusting.”

“Worse than your face?” Billy hikes a brow.

Steve’s jaw drops. “Bullshit! You said - you called me - you’re such a fucking piece of shit, Hargrove.”

Billy cracks up, smashing his palm against Steve’s face and just rubbing his hand over Steve’s freakishly smooth skin. Does Steve have an amazing razor or is he still waiting to get facial hair? “Aw, baby, don’t be mad,” he teases. 

Steve plays dirty, grabbing blindly and yanking hard on Billy’s hair. 

“Bitch!” Billy hisses. He shoves Steve’s face away from him and messages his scalp.

Steve laughs at him, eyes squinty and happy. “You can throw a mean right hook, but you get all pissy when your hair is pulled?”

“You just didn’t pull it right, Harrington,” Billy says lewdly. 

Steve stutter stops before his cheeks tinge pink. “Is that what you tell all the girls? Because I’ve never seen you go out with the same girl for more than a once.”

“You keeping track?” It gives Billy a weird thrill to think Steve’s been paying him that much attention. He shakes it off before it can settle too deep. “Besides, I want to see what Hawkins has to offer before I blow out of here to never come back.”

“You’re crass,” Steve says. 

Billy points to the fridge, “And I’m starting to think you’re a liar. Where’s my beer?”

Steve pulls open the fridge and tosses Billy a cold can. Billy pops the tab and takes a drink. Steve sticks a second beer in the back pocket of his ill fitting jeans. 

Billy knows that Steve isn’t quite as gifted in his assets as Billy is, but seriously. With the kind of money Steve is drowning in, there is no reason he shouldn’t be able to find a brand of jeans that frames him right. If he can afford that Members Only grey jacket, it’s outrageous he’s not paying top dollar for the rest of his wardrobe. 

And it’s not even specifically Steve’s fashion that makes Billy mourn. It’s the whole of fucking Hawkins. California had style, distinct individual ones. Hawkins is the beige of style. The same acid-wash jeans and pastel color palette. Where the fuck are the Jams shorts? Vans shoes? Has anyone here even watched _Fast Times At Ridgemont High_? God, Spicoli would fucking die here. 

“So when are we lugging out the carcass?” Billy asks, just to keep from depressing himself further. 

“We need to dig the whole first. That thing is going to start melting as soon as we take it out and I have no doubt it smells like ass.” Steve wrinkles his nose. 

Billy gestures with his beer can for Steve to lead the way. 

After getting the shovels from a shitty shed, Steve and Billy trek their way out among the sparse trees abutting the Byers property. They are following the raucous sounds of the brat brigade. 

“Why are the kids even here?” Billy asks. He would have been thrilled to drop Max off at the fucking arcade over spending any amount of extra time with her. 

“They demanded to be here, so that’s the main reason, because there is literally no way to stop them from doing what they have decided on. It’s scary, actually. If I had that kind of single minded focus, I might be graduating with a 3.0 instead of a 2.5,” Steve muses. Beneath their feet, the fall leaves crackle pleasantly. 

Which, to be fair, California doesn’t do fall, at least not the part Billy grew up in. But he’s also willing to say California skips the shitty seasons. He already knows winter is going to be the pits and spring is going to be nothing but disgusting, endless rain that will totally fuck with his hair. 

“What are the other reasons?” Billy asks. 

Steve slows down until he and Billy are shoulder to shoulder. “Well,” he pitches his voice low, “the kids have been having nightmares.”

Billy’s brow wrinkles. “And you know this how?”

“They talk to each other and Dustin talks to me. He’s, like, one of those stray cats you feed one time and then they keep coming back. And since I don’t exactly have a maxed out social card, I hear him out when he needs someone to talk to.” Steve doesn’t sound embarrassed that he’s basically adopted a little brother. He sounds - happy? Satisfied? Some emotion that Billy has never felt in relation to Max.

It’s a glaring reminder that his fucked up family now extends beyond just Billy and his dad. It’s swallowed Max and her mom too. Billy puts that in the same ‘ignore it’ pile he does with anything that will cease to matter once he leaves Hawkins in six months when he graduates. 

They’ve stopped walking, but they can hear the kids screaming and shouting over what sounds like a leaf fight. Billy asks, “All the kids are having nightmares or just your goofy one? What’s wrong with his teeth?”

“There’s nothing wrong with his teeth,” Steve says defensively. “It’s this, like, genetic condition, his bones are like rubbery or something, it’s kind of cool.” Steve gives Billy a glance as if to make sure Billy isn’t going to make a thing of it. 

Billy isn’t, he doesn’t really give a shit beyond it being weird to see a middle schooler who's still missing their two front teeth. “And the nightmares?” he prompts. 

Steve shrugs. “Dustin, Will, and, uh, Max.” He glances over at Billy to see how he’ll take this information. 

Billy takes a drink of his beer. “So what, we bury it and the nightmares stop?”

“No,” Steve says, “but I feel like if we bury it we are putting the, like, bad shit in the ground, and then maybe the kids can start letting themselves move on from it?”

Billy’s kind of blown away by this. He knows he’s a pretty self-centered bastard and he’s very much okay with that. He’s had to look out for himself his whole life. If everyone else doesn’t have to do that, then fucking great for them, but Billy isn’t about to rearrange his world for the sake of others when he knows how hard it is to be the only one who cares about his own life. 

And here’s Steve. This seventeen year old high school jock who had to be used to being the center of his own world too. Now he’s trying to take care of a handful of middle schoolers, worrying about their, like, mental health when even their parents don’t seem to care? Coming up with grand schemes just to help some kids that aren’t even related to him sleep better at night? 

It’s wild. Billy had heard from Tommy and some of the basketball guys that Steve used to be a totally different person before he started dating Nancy. This is his first time really seeing that as a reality. He wonders what it was about Nancy that changed Steve’s view. 

How could Nancy ‘I’ll dump you for Jonathan Byers’ Wheeler; Nancy ‘my clothes are quintessential mid-west’ Wheeler; Nancy ‘my mom is honestly more of a babe than me’ Wheeler have had that profound of an impact on Steve? 

Billy sizes Steve up. He’s lanky, he’s got great hair, he’s impossibly pretty, and his clothes are okay. He could reasonably have pretty much any girl he asked out. Which means he could reasonably be doing anything else with his night but this. “Why do you care so much about these kids?”

Steve looks surprised by the question. “I don’t know. I guess because who else is going to? I’ve been a dick before, and, uh, someone died and I didn’t even realize it had happened? So, I mean, I don’t want that to happen again. I can help them,” he gestures with the handle of his shovel towards the source of bright laughter deeper in the woods, “so I’m going to.” He shrugs. “It’s the right choice, you know?”

Billy really doesn’t. Billy has pretty much made his brand out of making the wrong choice. “I can’t fucking stand, Max,” he says in a rush. He doesn’t know what Steve means about someone dying and he’s not sure he really wants to know. Hawkins is fucked up enough as it is. 

Steve tilts his head to consider Billy. “Isn’t that normal for siblings?”

“We aren’t siblings,” Billy refutes. “She’s just some pain in the ass who lives in my house because her mom was dumb enough to get married to my dad.”

“Way to not look through rose tinted glasses,” Steve says.

Billy regrets saying anything. Of course Steve wouldn’t get it. He doesn’t have Neil waiting at home to take out any of Max’s mistakes on him. “Are we digging this hole or what?” Billy starts walking again, ending their conversation. 

Steve trails after him. “I mean she’s what, thirteen? And a girl. So that’s got to be weird for you. But, like, how long have her mom and your dad been married?”

Billy doesn’t want to answer, but he finds himself doing it anyway. “A year.”

Steve whistles. “Well, maybe you’re still getting used to each other or some shit?”

“Why are you even still talking?” Billy snaps.

The tip of a shovel pokes Billy in the shoulder. “Don’t get so pissed, man. We don’t have to talk about Max. We can talk about how we’re going to explain our blisters to coach at practice tomorrow. Because I definitely didn’t bring any gloves for this and that hole is going to need to be deep to fit this thing in it.”

~*~*~*~

The alien monster is just not what Billy was expecting. Somehow it’s worse. So much worse than whatever vague thing his mind has been picturing. The real thing is this weird, frozen hard, purple-grey skinned monstrosity. This head that fucking opens like a plant? Billy doesn’t know what to do with any of this.

“How did this not kill you?” Billy demands through gritted teeth as they start lugging the thing out of the Byers’ house. 

The kids have a Little Red Ryder wagon waiting outside for them. But right now, the Demodog is in an old sheet with Billy at one end and Steve at the other. 

“Luck,” Steve says plainly. 

Billy shakes his head. “Fucking crazy.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Steve pants as they edge through the living room towards the front doorway. 

“Here! Hey, I’ve got it!” No Teeth - Dustin, Billy mentally corrects - is trying to shove Billy out of the way to grab his end of the sheet.

“Fuck off,” Billy curses, elbowing the kid hard in the head as he fends him off.

“Dustin! Move,” Steve orders. 

Dustin’s shoulders slump but at least he moves the fuck out of the way. “I’m trying to help, Steve.”

“Great, then push the wagon closer,” Billy bitches. The stupid wagon isn’t even at the front porch. It’s near the stupid shitty shed. 

Dustin races over to pull the wagon over, but its tires get stuck in the dirt. “Uh, hold on, yep, I’ve got -”

Suddenly the wagon shoots towards them, its wheels turning as easily as if it was on hardwood. Billy freezes where he is, watching this impossibility. Steve makes a strangled sound as he hops back a step to keep from tripping over his own feet and dropping the alien dog. 

“Jesus, Billy, a little heads up?”

“The wagon,” Billy says angrily. And yeah, Billy realizes he is the kind of guy that would be pissed off if he saw a ghost because he wouldn’t be able to explain how it exists. So right now, he’s pissed. “The wagon it -”

“Mouth breather,” scoffs the curly haired girl, stepping around the back of the shed with Max right beside her. 

“El’s psychic,” Max says smugly.

Billy shoots a look to Steve for confirmation. Steve shrugs. “I mean, yeah?”

“What in the fuck,” Billy mutters, shaking his head at how fucking chaotic his life got since showing up at the Byers’, like, a fucking week ago. 

“She made a kid pee his pants!” adds Dustin. “And she’ll do it to you too if you’re an asshole to us.” 

Steve is tugging at the sheet to try and make Billy keep walking to the now very close wagon. Billy is not giving an inch. “That’s fucked up.” He stares hard at Steve. “Like what the hell, man?” 

There’s honestly very little in this world left that scares Billy. He’s not scared of the alien monster and he knows he wouldn't be if it was still alive. He’d be pissed. Just like he is about this psychic bullshit. But a pre-teen with the ability to make him piss himself? That’s fucking terrifying.

“She won’t,” Steve hurriedly promises, but he sounds less than certain. Seeing Billy’s stormy expression, he darts a pleading look at El. “You won’t, right?”

“If you are an asshole,” El says to Billy, “I will. Friends take care of each other.”

Billy lifts his eyebrows sky high. “Whatever you want, Orphan Annie.” 

“Her dad’s the sheriff, dumbass,” Max informs him snidely.

Billy’s not scared of cops. But he’s not exactly passe about them either. “Jesus. You had to fucking pick the weirdest group of friends, didn’t you, Maxine?”

For a weird moment, Max looks at him like he’s something other than her enemy. Then her expression shutters again. “Are you going to put that in the wagon or what? It’s starting to drip, you know.”

“Sick!” Steve shouts, thrusting the dog away from him and forcing Billy to swing his end too. The alien dog lands with a disgusting squishy thud in the wagon. 

They stare down at it. 

“Nasty,” Billy intones.

“Repulsive,” Steve agrees.

~*~*~*~

By the time Billy and Steve have finished piling dirt on the corpse of the alien dog, the sun is long down. The kids have scattered back to the Byers’ to watch shitty cable tv. Steve and Billy are sprawled out on the hood of the Camaro, a cooler of beer at their feet.

“So,” Steve says. Then he says nothing.

Billy rolls his head to the side against the windshield. “So what, Harrington?”

Steve huffs a breath, takes a drink from his beer. “So, like, we’re friends now, right? Like we buried a dead alien dog body together. That has to make us friends, right?”

In California, Billy had the same group of friends since elementary school. They were the friends Billy met the summer after his mom walked out. He’d met Andre, Benji, Jose, and Jonsey on his block. And when they’d tried out for basketball in middle school, they’d been the best players and that had been enough to cement lifelong friendship.

Until Billy got shipped out to Nowhere, Indiana. Billy might sit with the other jocks and he might take a girl out every weekend, but there is no one here that Billy gives a shit about. Which makes ‘friends’ a concept rather than a reality. 

Because he’d have to care enough about living here in Hawkins to actually try for more than surface level friendship with the guys at school. It’s a real difficult thing since he hates everything about Hawkins. Including the people who live there. 

But Steve - well, Billy thinks Andre would have liked his ridiculous house and rich bitch pool. Jonsey would have been willing to copy off even Steve’s shitty math because Jonsey was an absolute dunce when it came to anything but art and skateboarding. Benji would have thought Steve’s vacillation between dumb and jerk were hilarious. And Jose, he would have seen exactly the same thing Billy does. A really pretty guy. One whose dumb enough to put up with Billy’s shit. 

Sighing aggressively, Billy blows a trail of smoke into the navy blue sky. “What, you need a fucking friendship bracelet or some shit, Steve?”

“Aw, Billy, I didn’t know you knew how to braid. Is that how you keep these curls so perfect?” Steve tugs playfully at a curl falling across Billy’s temple. 

“You want your balls to stay attached, you keep your hands off my hair,” Billy threatens. 

Steve turns so he’s on his side, grinning at Billy. “But your hair is so soft.” He twines another curl around his finger. “Sunshine and masculinity.”

Billy bites back a smile because it would be weird to smile Steve in a moment like this, where it’s just the two of them in the dark with only a few inches between them and Steve’s fingers are in his hair. So Billy decides to break apart the weirdness. “Who died that you knew?”

Steve jerks like he’s been shocked. He releases Billy’s hair, nervously wipes his palms against his ill-fitting jeans. “Oh. Uh, Nancy’s best friend, actually.”

Billy’s eyes widen. “No fucking way.”

“Way,” Steve says with a nervous nod. “She, uh, came to my place? It was a dumb party with me, Nancy, Tommy, and Carol. The four of us went in the house to fuck around, but Barb stayed out by the pool. And - “ he shrugs and doesn’t finish. 

Billy waits him out. Steve takes a sip of his beer. He taps his fingers against his jeans. Then he exhales. “There’s another version of the alien. One that’s more like a person, I guess? Like it has arms and legs, still the same plant face, but it definitely didn’t talk or anything. Just kind of scream shriek. It was awful. But, yeah, that’s - uh - what got Barb? She was by my pool and then - then she wasn’t.”

Billy takes this all in. He tries to play it out in his mind. It leaves him with shivers. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs. “It was really twisted. And - uhm, that was part of why Nancy and I broke up? Because Nancy said it was our fault that Barb died -”

Billy scoffs darkly. “Fat fucking chance. Literally, how could you know there was an alien lurking by your pool? Nancy’s a fucking bitch.”

Steve makes a choked off sound. “Dude. Nancy’s not a bitch.”

Billy fixes Steve with a look and lifts an unimpressed brow. “I thought we were all besties now, or whatever, Harrington. That means I get to tell you like it is and you listen to me. Nancy is a bitch, doesn’t matter what she’s like in real life. She dumped your ass and went out with Jonathan half a second afterwards. She’s a bitch.”

Steve presses his lips together and hums. “Robin might have said something similar.”

“Fuck off,” Billy says with disgust. “That’s where I draw the line, Harrington. I’ll call you my friend but Robin is going to remain a band dweeb a year behind us, got it?”

Steve laughs softly. “Yeah, whatever, Billy. As long as you keep bailing me out with my homework.”

Billy leans back against the Camaro and hides his smirk. For the first time, something in Hawkins doesn’t seem like complete shit.


	2. To Play Up Your Breakdown

Billy takes out Jillian Connor on Saturday. They see a movie, some dumb action movie, because Jillian is decently cool. They don’t get past making out and some minor groping. Jillian smiles brightly at him when he drops her off at her house later that night. 

Sunday, Billy works out and ignores every word Max says to him. 

Monday, Billy refuses to admit he’s waiting for Steve to get to school. He leans up against the side of the Camaro and stares pointedly at Hawkins High. He won’t let himself watch the road. Because that would be weird. 

When Steve does pull into the student parking lot, he parks his BMW next to the Camaro. Billy continues to stare at the school, pretends he hasn’t been waiting for Steve for the past ten minutes. Steve bumps his shoulder into Billy’s. “Are you trying to set it on fire with your mind?”

“Would if I could,” Billy says lowly.

Steve laughs. “Yeah, okay, Billy.” He drops his backpack on the hood of the Camaro. “So, what do you want to help me tackle first? French, chem, or math?”

Billy shifts his weight to lean his hips into the cold metal of Camaro. “Which one do you suck at the least?”

“French?” Steve hazards a guess.

Billy eyes him suspiciously. Part of his brain is trying to argue that it’s kind of endearing how dumb Steve is with school. The bigger part of him is saying he should tease Steve ruthlessly about it. Instead, Billy says nothing. He holds out his hand and Steve eagerly rummages through his bag for his French homework.

~*~*~*~

When Billy sets his tray down next to Steve at lunch, Steve is pulling out his own lunch from his daily brown bag. Billy lifts his eyebrows at the plastic container. “Sushi?”

“You know what sushi is?” Steve asks with an offensive amount of surprise.

“I’m from Cali, dumbass. We practically invented sushi in America.” Billy holds up his slice of cafeteria pizza and takes a snapping bite. 

“Uhm, that’s, like, not factual,” Steve argues nonsensically. 

“Ever heard of the California Roll, Harrington? Where do you think that came from.” Billy laughs at him. 

Steve gets this affronted look. “You're being sushi biased. There are definitely other types of sushi.”

“Name one,” Billy challenges.

“Sushi sushi. And like raw fish sushi.” Steve squints uncertainly. 

Billy cracks up. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

“I don’t know!” Steve throws his hands up. “I’m just trying to be all rich bitch with this sushi that there is no way I’m going to eat while you’re being all fucking rude devouring your delicious pizza.” Morosely, Steve pokes his plastic container of sushi with his chopsticks. 

With a roll of his eyes, Billy passes over his tray, pizza and all, and takes over Steve’s sushi. “Your mid-western taste could never appreciate this anyway.”

Steve’s glowing as he rips off a bite of the pizza. “Amen.”

“Uh -”

Billy and Steve both look up sharply at the intrusion to their lunch, because the voice does not belong to Robin. 

Hawkins is small, Billy knows this because it’s something that haunts him in his dreams. He knows high school life here is amplified to a level of _Dynasty_ drama. So, rationally, he should have realized that hanging out with Steve would be considered Big Time News. Billy hasn’t realized this because he gives so little a shit about what anyone else here does. 

Billy glares at the interloper. “The fuck do you want, Ian?” 

Ian blanches under Billy's scrutiny. “I can sit here, right?”

Billy looks to Steve for his opinion. When Steve shrugs, Billy jerks his head in a nod. “Take a load off, amigo.”

With a look of relief, Ian sits down across from them. He’s got a brown bag lunch too. He looks over at Billy’s sushi and his eyes widen. “What the hell is that?”

“Sushi,” Steve boasts. “It’s mine. But Billy’s an animal so he prefers raw food.”

“It’s raw?” Ian asks with even more bewilderment. 

“Country hicks,” Billy scoffs. “Thank fuck you’re getting a mall.”

Steve flips him off while taking another messy bite of pizza. “Whatever, asshole.”

Ian watches them for a moment before smiling tentatively. “So, uh, what do you think are our chances against Berkshire this week?”

Immediately, Steve’s off on a break down of Berkshire’s players and how they match up against their own. Steve’s kind of the de facto captain of their team since he’s been on Varsity the longest. He’s their best point guard and takes the whole ‘keep the team together’ thing seriously. 

Billy switches between shooting guard and small forward out of virtue of being the best player on the team in general. He prefers playing as the small forward since it’s a more physical position, when he isn’t toeing the line into foul territory. But Coach puts him in as shooting guard more often since it gets him in less trouble and he does have the best shot on the team. 

Billy has never really listened to Steve’s opinions on the team because he couldn’t stand Steve or anything else about Hawkins. Now that he’s giving Steve a pass, he finds that what Steve has to say is fairly intelligent. It’s like Steve gets basketball at a different level than he’s able to play. He’d make a good captain if Coach was into that sort of thing. 

But Coach Higgins is an egotistical bastard who won’t assign a captain for fear of it taking some of his own ‘power’ away. So instead, Billy and Steve share assistant captainship. Billy doesn’t do anything with his title, he leaves it to Steve to give the rah-rah team speeches. Billy’s just there to play. 

So now that he’s actually listening, he’s impressed. He slides a sideways look at Steve, watches as he tucks a messy lock of his hair behind his ear. Yeah, Jose would think Steve was really pretty.

~*~*~*~

Tuesday, their lunch table is crowded. Now that Ian has broken the ice or some shit, half the team is sitting with them. Steve still pointedly saves Robin’s seat across from him. The weird thing is none of the guys have a problem with her. They just nod to her, call her Buckley, and leave her and Steve to talk about the same dumbshit they always do.

Billy thinks maybe that is the one perk of the whole small town thing. The guys already know Robin. Some of them are in her year and some of them have friends or siblings in band. And, apparently, it’s weirder to the small minds of Hawkins that Billy and Steve would be friends than that Steve would hang out with Robin. 

Billy leans around his teammates and finds Tommy sitting at a vastly depleted lunch table. Carol’s there, along with some of her friends, including Jillian. It satisfies the vicious side of Billy to see Tommy abandoned by his friends. 

Then Steve’s jabbing Billy with his elbow demanding Billy side with him in whatever ridiculous argument he’s having with Robin. “Of course Steve is right,” Billy says automatically, because Billy still doesn’t like Robin. She’s the only other one who fucks around with Steve the way Billy does and Billy isn’t entirely sure he’s okay with that. 

Robin stares flatly at him. “Steve is right that spiders lay nests in people’s hair at night?”

Billy resolutely does not react. “Exact same shit happened to my friend Benji’s cousin in Los Angeles.” It’s a complete fucking lie and Billy is definitely going to need to have a serious talk to Steve about his bizarre spider beliefs later. But right now, it only matters that Billy refuses to back down. 

“See!” Steve declares triumphantly. 

“Hmm.” Robin presses her lips together on her straw as she drinks down a long sip of her Pepsi Free. She shifts her gaze from Steve’s gloating grin to Billy’s steely grimace. “Hmm,” she says again. 

Billy flips her off and turns to Eric to ditch the conversation and Robin’s piercing eyes.

~*~*~*~

On the drive home, Max keeps her entire body turned away from Billy, looking out the window like she’s a half second from yanking the door open and tumbling out. Billy ignores her and her pre-teen drama. He spins the dial on the volume and fills up the silence with the Scorpions.

As they cross the school road to the long road that intersects with their street, the radio suddenly quiets. Billy shoots Max a venomous look. “Don’t touch my fucking stereo.”

Max meets his look with one that is equally fierce. “So what, you’re just friends with Steve Harrington now?”

Billy huffs a breath. “Why the fuck would that have anything to do with you, Maxine?”

“You just - you - “ she sputters to a stop and shakes her head angrily, her red hair whipping across her cheeks. “So you can smash a fucking plate over his head, trying to seriously kill him, and then by Monday you’re all buddy-buddy?” 

Billy ignores her. He reaches out and turns the volume up again. Billy isn’t going to discuss his life with Max. She isn’t a part of it and in six months she’ll be out of it forever. 

“Talk to me!” Max shouts. 

Billy balks, foot hitting the brake as a knee jerk reaction to her shouting. He jerks the Camaro to the side of the road and stares at his step-sister. She’s all worked up. Her pale, freckled cheeks bright red, her hair a tangled mess at her shoulders, and her clear blue eyes flickering with some emotion Billy can’t quite name. 

“What do you want?” he snaps. 

“I want - I want my brother back!” Max bites her lip as soon as she speaks, like she’s said too much, confessed a secret. 

Billy shakes his head derisively. “I’m not your fucking brother.”

“You didn’t use to be this way,” Max argues. “You didn’t use to - to hate me. I mean, you were always a huge asshole to me, but not like this. Not like every time you look at me you wish I was dead. Like I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

Her eyes are getting watery and Billy is wavering between being furious with her and being panicked that she might cry. “You fucking drugged me. You slammed a studded bat between my fucking legs. What did you think was going to happen, Maxine? I’d suddenly become your big brother? Fuck off.” He shakes his head and glares out the driver’s side window.

“But why can Steve be your friend?” she argues. “Why can you beat him to a bleeding mess but he can be your friend? Why not me?”

“Because you ruined my life!” Billy shouts. He slams his open palm against the steering wheel. 

“I didn’t!” Max denies.

“Without you and your stupid mom, I wouldn’t be living in Nowhere, Indiana. Without you, I wouldn’t be stuck in the smaller bedroom. Without you, I wouldn’t be wasting gas driving you around. Without you, I wouldn’t be trapped in the house most weeknights and the weekend. Fucking babysitting you like your eight years old instead of thirteen. Without you, Neil wouldn’t be breathing down my neck every fucking day just waiting for some stupid shit you do to be taken out on me. Without you, I would still have my old life!” 

Billy’s breathing heavily when he finishes. He’s gripping the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping him from just throwing himself out of the car and walking home. He hates everything. He wants to break something. He wants to make all the wrong decisions, knowing that it’s wrong and being furious enough not to care about the consequences, relishing them instead. 

Max is holding herself tightly, eyes shimmering with tears that she refuses to let drop. “That’s not fair.”

Billy sneers. “Haven’t you heard, Max? Life isn’t fair.” Billy stamps on the gas and fishtails the Camaro back onto the road. 

He only stops long enough for Max to jump out of the car, then Billy whips the car back out of the driveway and just drives. He drives the roads that trap him in Hawkins. He stops at the Leaving Hawkins sign he battered a few weeks ago and idles there while the radio rotates through their top ten countdown. 

Then Billy puts the car back in drive. He drives to the one place, the one person, in Hawkins that he doesn’t hate, right now at least.

~*~*~*~

When Billy cruises down Steve’s street he decides this is a stupid fucking idea. What’s he going to do? Throw rocks at Steve’s window until he comes down? If this was Benji or Jose, Billy would throw his shoe at the window, they would stick their head out and scream at him, and then they’d come down stairs and share a beer.

But this isn’t California and Billy doubts throwing shoes at one of the nicest houses in town would be condoned. Billy slows as the Camaro creeps towards Steve’s house and the stretch of dark woods behind his house. The lights are on and there’s no reason Billy can’t just go up and ring the doorbell. 

He doesn’t though. He idles two houses down instead, flicking his lighter on and off, feeling the almost painful heat of the flame before the sudden cool of its disappearance. It’s mid-November and Hawkins is starting to get downright chilly. Soon, Billy’s going to need to hang up his jean jacket for good and change over to his brown leather jacket instead. If it fucking snows, Billy’s going to have to buy some kickass boots. He’s never needed anything but his All-Stars in Cali. 

“Billy?” The question is followed by tapping on the passenger window. 

Billy looks sharply to his left and finds Steve staring at him, so close his nose is touching the glass. Disgruntled by the abrupt intrusion, Billy rolls down the passenger window halfway. “What do you want, Harrington?”

“Oh, really? You just happened to be driving up and down my street because of the view?” Steve scoffs. He tugs at the locked door handle. “Are you going to let me in or not?” He’s got his Members Only jacket on, but he still looks cold, kind of hopping as he tries to jimmy his way into the car. 

Billy takes his time reaching over to unlock the door, enjoying the way Steve sighs disgustedly. Steve snatches the door open and tumbles inside, a jumble of long limbs and purposefully messy hair. He shoves his hands in front of the heaters and whines when he finds them off. 

“Aren’t you supposed to go into, like, suspended animation as soon as it drops below sixty?” Steve asks, chafing his hands together. 

Billy rolls up the wrist of his jean jacket. “I’m wearing long sleeves.”

Steve nods sagely. “Ah, layers. Smart play.”

Billy’s lips twitch in an unapproved smile, because it’s been less than five minutes and Steve’s already dragging him out of his Billy vs the Word mood. He reaches into the backseat and hands Steve his pack of cigarettes. 

“Thanks,” Steve says. He takes out two, offering one to Billy. “Want to see where I lost my virginity?” 

Billy chokes on a laugh, hacking to clear his lungs before taking a long drag from his smoke. “Was it someplace other than your bedroom?”

“I mean, technically it was in the back of my BMW, but I was parked by this shitty little lake we have on the outskirts of town? Well, to be fair, it’s actually over the city line, but only by, like, a few miles, so it still sort of Hawkins’ shitty little lake.” Steve traces the outline of the shitty little lack with his cigarette as he talks. 

Billy puts the car in drive. He hasn’t strayed so much as a foot outside of Hawkins since getting here. Not with his dad constantly breathing down his neck. But god how he has wanted to. “Point me there, pretty boy.”

~*~*~*~

They drive along for a little while with just the radio and Steve’s directions. Then Steve drops his cigarette out the window and turns to wiggle his eyebrows ridiculously at Billy. “Eric said you went out with Jillian.”

“I did,” Billy agrees. 

“We were in the first grade together. I was kind of a weird kid and I cut the end of some of her hair with this scheme to, like, fucking grow it like grass? But then she started crying and I felt so bad I tried to use glue to put it back on with her other hair,” Steve says solemnly.

It doesn’t matter if Billy wanted to fight it, he can’t help but crack up. “That’s so fucking dumb, Harrington.”

“Dude, I know,” Steve agrees. “But, like, my question now is, where the fuck was the teacher? What was little six year old me doing unsupervised with scissors for long enough that I could cut off a hunk of Jillian’s hair? I mean that shit just screams negligence.”

Billy can just imagine little Steve with his huge Bambi eyes being all shocked when Jillian started crying about her hacked off hair. “You sound like a goddamn menace.”

“Oh, I was.” Steve grins. “It was weird because I didn’t really mean any harm but I would get these dumbass ideas in my head that I couldn’t let go of until I had seen them through to their inevitable cluster fuck ending.” He tilts his head at Billy. “What hijinks did Little Billy get up to?”

Billy shrugs, checking the speed limit for the stretch of highway they are riding and pushing the pedal until he’s going a solid ten over. “Little Billy didn’t do hijinks. Not unless he wanted to be reminded of them at home. The Hargrove household isn’t big on touchy-feely unless it comes with a bruise.”

He hears Steve suck in his breath, but Billy doesn’t look over at him. This isn’t new information for Billy, it’s the same shitty story that he’s lived his whole life with. 

It’s one that honestly wasn’t all that uncommon even with his friends. Benji’s dad would fly off the handle when he was drunk and Benji had come to school more than once with a black eye. Jose’s mom could be a real mean bitch if Jose forgot to look after his four younger brothers and sisters and her slaps hurt, especially if her rings caught you at a bad angle. 

“Jesus, Billy,” Steve says, his voice hushed like Billy is someone breakable.

“What, you thought I got my shining personality and anger issues from a great childhood?” Billy gives him a look. “You saw my dad the other night. He’s always like that, except usually worse.”

Steve licks his bottom lip. “Billy, man, that’s - that’s not okay, you know that right?”

Billy’s face shifts through several emotions at once. He can’t settle on what he wants to project to Steve right now. “It just is,” he finally says. “When I’m out of here in six months, it won’t be anymore.”

“Okay,” Steve says hesitantly. “But, like, you know if you need anything - “

Billy cuts him off before he can say something that will make Billy hate him again. “I can handle it, man. I’ve been handling it for seventeen years. Six months is going to be a fucking breeze.”

“Left up here,” Steve says, pointing to the cross road they are coming up on. 

Billy flicks on his blinker and slows as he makes the turn. Around them, the farmlands are shifting into forest. The shoulders of the road are narrow gravel lanes cluttered by bright orange and yellow fall leaves. 

“What about your mom? I mean, I know your dad’s with Susan now, but like, is your mom still in California?” Steve asks. 

“Sure she is,” Billy says. “Plot 87 at Remmington Cemetery.” He keeps his eyes on the road, refusing to see pity or concern crease Steve’s features. “I was eight. She left to get some time away from my old man, get a place of her own that I could move into with her. Didn’t work out that way though. Aneurysm. The doctors found out later it was a condition that ran in her family.” 

Billy hasn’t talked about this in years. Not since he was thirteen and old enough to ask his dad how his mom could just drop dead if she hadn’t been sick before. Neil had been brutal about it. Acted like it was her fault for having a genetic condition that killed her simply because she stood up one day and the clot that had been dormant went to her heart. 

Billy had hated her for a year afterwards, willing to blame his mom the same way his dad did, because it was so much easier than accepting that sometimes life is just that cruel. But the first time his dad split his lip, yeah, Billy woke up real quick. Life was a cruel bitch and you had to be a tougher piece of shit to get through it. 

“Fuck, Billy,” Steve says, voice gone all hollow and sad. “That’s messed up.”

Billy shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”

Steve seems to take it for the silent ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ that Billy means. He shifts the conversation to himself. “My parents are just, I don’t know, delusional about what it means to have a kid? Like, I think they did it because that’s what you do when you get married? And then they realized when I turned two that I’m not actually a pet dog that can look after itself and that’s when they got bored of the whole thing.”

“Bored?” Billy asks, because it sounds like Steve wants to talk and if Steve can listen to Billy’s bullshit, then Billy will listen to his. 

“Yeah, I mean, they’re gone more often than they’re here. And when they are around, it’s just to remind me of how I’m, like, indebted to them? It’s like there’s this constant price tag hanging over my head. The clothes I buy, the cassettes for my stereo, the car, vacations we go on, college - if I make it in. It’s all hanging there in this debt cloud waiting to rain down on me the second I get started in my ‘adult’ life with my ‘adult’ job. I wouldn’t be surprised if the day I get hired at some stupid corporate company, my dad hands me a bill for the first twenty-two years of my life.” Steve exhales an empty laugh. 

“That’s fucked up,” Billy says. Neil isn’t like that, he doesn’t count the pennies Billy spends, he just berates the shit Billy spends it on. Anything and everything related to Billy is worthy of Neil’s scorn. 

“Whatever,” Steve downplays. “It’s nothing like what you’ve got going on.”

“Don’t compare your shit to my shit,” Billy says bitingly. 

“No, sorry, I meant - “

“Whatever you’ve got going on is going to be just as fucking shitty for you as the shit I’ve got going. It might be different shit, Harrington, but it’s still the same fucking day. But six months from now, we’re out. We’ll graduate from Hawkins, we’ll put this fucking awful town in our rearview mirror, and maybe we’ll even pull a _St. Elmo’s Fire_ and go to college.” Billy slows to a stop as the road shifts to gravel. He turns to Steve for direction and finds him staring at Billy. 

A slow smile spreads from one corner of Steve's mouth to the other. Billy tenses. "Aw, shucks, Billy. I care about you too." 

"I do not care about you," Billy says staunchly. 

"You do," Steve insists. "You're all, like, sensitive to my feelings." 

"I am not sensitive to shit." Billy points out the windshield at the landscape of trees. The sun is setting behind them making the tops of the trees look like they're catching fire. "Where to now, dick head?"

"Dude, we are, like, best friends now. We've shared emotional trauma. We've bonded. You care about me." Steve sounds fucking delighted. 

Billy wants to die. Clearly, Steve is the fucking worst. "I will shove you out of this car," Billy threatens, his voice turned down low. 

"You won't," Steve says with far too much confidence, "because you care about me." 

Billy reaches across and opens Steve's door. He lifts his brows to say, you still sure?

"Best friends," Steve lilts. 

Billy shoves hard against Steve's shoulder and sends him sprawling onto the gravel road. As Steve squawks in disbelief, Billy rolls the car forward a few feet. "Wait, wait!" Steve shouts, scrambling to his feet and chasing after the Camaro. 

As Billy cackles, Steve bitches about his dirty jeans and the leaves caught in his hair. "Are you going to fucking tell me where to go or should I just shove you out again?" Billy asks when he's finally stopped laughing. 

"Such an asshole!" Steve exclaims, but there's a smile lurking against his dirt smudged cheeks. "Right at the next turn off, asshat." 

The sheer idiocy of the insult sets Billy off laughing again. Steve throws his hands up before venting his frustration by switching Billy's radio over to some shitty pop station. 

It takes another five minutes to drive to the secluded section of woods where Steve popped some girl's cherry. 

"Jesus," Billy whistles. "Hope your girl hadn't watched _Friday the 13th_ or she was probably thinking you were going to machete her." 

Steve exhales loudly. "It was actually Sarah's idea. Her mom used to take her picnicking here when she was little. But, totally, thanks for that vote of confidence. I bet you wouldn't know romance if it bit you in the dick." 

Billy curls his tongue over his front teeth. “I do charming, not romantic, Harrington." 

He looks around the small circular clearing of grass that leads to some scrubby grass with a pond. Because that’s what it is, no matter what Steve and this poor deluded girl Sarah think. Mostly Billy thinks this place is creepy, being this far in the woods that no one would hear you scream. Even if it was a happy scream. 

"What?" Steve asks. "You're telling me Billy Hargrove never had sex on the beach back in California?" 

"Sand dunes are far less foreboding than your spooky ass woods." Billy had spent a spectacular summer night rolling around in the sand with Natalie Haymen. Hands down Natalie would have refused to do the same here in Steve's woods. 

Steve crinkles his face up in that dumb cute way he has. "But, like, dude, didn't the sand get everywhere?" 

Billy shoves him in the shoulder. "Yes, dumbass, but then you go skinny dipping in the ocean and you're all good." 

Steve ponders this as he walks to the center of the clearing and sits down facing the pond. He rests his weight on his palms and tilts his head back to look at the stars. His neck is a pleasing arc that Billy decidedly does not admire. 

"Oh, hey, is Max doing better with the nightmares?" Steve asks. 

Billy sighs. He walks over and drops down next to Steve. "I don't know. We don't talk about stuff like that." 

"Do you talk at all?" Steve challenges, eyes still gazing upward. 

Rubbing at his temples, Billy asks himself why he ever thought it was a good idea to start talking to Steve. “The fuck do you care? You’ve got a whole gaggle of children to worry about. What’s one more?”

Steve tilts his face in Billy’s direction. “I mean, fair, but also, like, she lives in your house. And you’ve known her way longer. And she really wants you to care about her.”

Billy blinks, unimpressed. “You sound like a shitty gameshow host trying to console me with an equally shitty door prize. Max does not give a fuck about me and the feeling is mutual. Pretty sure you don’t try to annihilate someone’s balls with a studded baseball bat if you ‘care’ about them,” Billy says, lilting his voice. 

“Billy,” Steve says flatly, “you were trying to kill Lucas and then you tried to kill me. I think the bat was warranted.”

“Stop trying to talk to me about this shit, Harrington. Or I’m done talking to you period.” Billy stands up and brushes dirt and grass off the back of his jeans. “I drove us here and I am more than okay with leaving your skinny ass stranded here.”

“My ass is not skinny,” Steve says, affronted. He twists to the side to try and get a look at said ass. 

Billy uses Steve’s position to shove Steve face first into the ground with a solid tap of his shoe against Steve’s decidedly skinny ass. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing, pretty boy.”

“Fuck off,” Steve bitches, scrambling back around and desperately wiping dirt from his shirt. “Please, You walk around with the world’s tightest jeans looking like every girl’s Tommy Hilfiger dream.” Steve sounds slightly miffed about this and against his will, Billy smiles. 

He quickly turns it into a scowl. “Are you done bitching about Maxine?”

Steve looks up thoughtfully. “Not really.”

Billy rolls his eyes and walks away from Steve, scouting out the clearing. It’s nothing that special and Billy really thinks he would rather not have sex some place where Jason Voorhees was far more likely than not to hack him and his dick into pieces. 

“I know I’m harping on you,” Steve calls over to him. “But look at it this way, if you woke up that night and Max was dead, how would you have felt?”

“Relieved,” Billy spits angrily. Except his stomach takes this swooping dive and Billy abruptly feels the need to sit down. So he does, all the way across the field from Steve, like they’re on opposite ends of a basketball court. 

Max is a bitch. A fucking pain in the ass. Billy can’t stand her. But if something happened to her, really happened to her? Billy doesn’t know for sure what he would feel. It wouldn't be like his dreams where she and her mom pack it up and move to Arizona. It would be a black suit and a harrowingly small coffin.

Nausea sweeps over Billy, he curls over his knees and stares fixedly at an ant mound between his knees. Billy doesn’t know what happened to Max’s dad. He’s never asked and she’s never said because they don’t have conversations like that. Ones that mean anything. They just bitch and yell at each other. Even when Billy is trying to relate to her, like about how fucking shitty Hawkins is, it always devolves into a shouting match. They just don’t gel, they're oil and water. 

Even when they have things in common, like missing parents and moving to a Bumfuck, Illinois, they can’t relate about anything. So what’s the point? Billy’s life would be so much easier without Max in it. Still, that doesn't mean Billy wants her dead. That’s fucking extreme, even for him. 

“The thing is,” Steve says, and he sounds closer than Billy expects, “Max cares about you. I’m not saying she likes you, but she cares about you. And I think she really needs someone to care about her, because she could have been eaten by a Demodog twice and no one she lives with would have been the wiser.” 

When Billy looks up, Steve’s sitting across from him, the tips of his sneakers touching the tips of Billy’s. “Can we be done with this now, Guidance Counselor Harrington?” Billy asks snottily. 

Steve smiles as he shrugs. “Sure, just give it some thought, okay?”

Billy flips him off instead of answering. 

“So,” Steve says and Billy is fucking grateful they are done talking about stupid shit like his not-sister, “what’s the worst thing Bad Boy Billy has ever done?”

“Start talking to some country hick named Harrington.”

When Steve starts laughing, it’s a bright, delighted sound that makes Billy smile even when he tries to curve his mouth into a frown.

~*~*~*~

Life in Hawkins falls into a new rhythm. In the half hour before school, Billy helps Steve muddle his way through homework. After school, three nights out of five, Billy hangs out with Steve. They shoot hoops at Steve’s house, bitch about Hawkins parked at the Quarry, or spend a few hours at Sheady’s Pool Hall while Max and the other brats are at the arcade. On the weekends, Billy will take a new girl out for a spin, and spend the other day watching TV in Steve’s pleasantly empty house. And to Billy’s everlasting surprise, he likes life in Hawkins during the weeks of November and early December.

Steve and Billy seem to play a revolving game of twenty questions. Steve is always trying to pry at the layers he claims Billy has and Billy is trying to understand why Steve holds Dustin in such high regard. 

“But why are you driving him to the Snow Ball?” Billy asks again, passes his cigarette to Steve. The moon is bouncing off the Quarry, making the black water look more like the sky than the actual one above them. 

It’s gotten down right cold and Billy is bundled up in a miserably unfashionable mid-Western parka with a faux-fur lined hood. He looks like an idiot and he knows it, but he doesn’t feel like he’s freezing to death, which at this point is all Billy’s aiming for. His gloves are fingerless because they look badass while still keeping his hands reasonably warm. Compared to Billy, Steve looks like he’s on Spring break. 

Steve’s still just wearing his Member’s Only jacket, but he’s added a black plaid scarf. His ears are always red and his cheeks go pink as soon as he’s been outside for more than twenty minutes. But still, Steve never dresses warmer. 

“Because he doesn’t want to get dropped off by his mom,” Steve says. “He’s already super self-conscious because he’s the only one going without a date. Well, if Hopper let’s El go, and Will doesn’t want a date so I’m not counting him.” 

Billy narrows his eyes at this information. “Who the hell is Lucas going with.”

Steve gives Billy a pink cheeked look of exasperation. “Max, obviously. He asked her on, like, December first because he has no chill.” 

“Jesus, what a shit show,” Billy groans. “Do you know what kind of hell that is going to raise at my place? Can’t you convince your little dweebs to, like, go as a group or some shit?”

Billy and Max haven’t had anything close to a conversation since the blow out on the drive home when she tried to call him her brother. It’s been a long icy silence that Billy has reveled in. He’s let himself stop caring what Max does, because she hasn’t been doing anything too stupid, anything that will land Billy in trouble. Clearly, he’s been negligent in that regard. 

“That is your shit with your sister and you get super pissy with me any time I try to talk to you about it, so -” Steve holds up his hands, the shared cigarette between his long fingers sending thin streams of smoke upwards. 

Billy lazily flips Steve off. He’s too relaxed right now to worry about Maxine and all her bullshit. He lays back against the windshield of the Camaro and watches his breath puff out in white mist. “Shouldn’t the water be frozen?” He tips his Converse in the direction of the Quarry. 

Steve laughs. “It’s not that cold, man. Still above thirty-two.” 

Billy makes a face. It feels below zero to him, but then again, Billy had started to feel truly cold once it hit the mid-fifties. “If it’s called the Snow Ball, shouldn’t it have the accompanying ambiance?”

“It’ll snow before Christmas, Billy, don’t worry, Santa’s reindeer will be able to land on your roof and give you the creepy Playboy Calendar I know you’re desperate for.” Steve tilts his head in Billy's direction and smirks. 

“We all know you’re asking for a big bottle of hand lotion, Steve.” Billy makes a jerk off motion with his hand. 

“Fuck off,” Steve shouts before breaking into laughter. He kicks Billy hard in the ankle, but soothes the assault by passing over the almost finished smoke. 

Billy shifts to the left and throws his legs on top of Steve’s. “Are you going to Ian’s party this weekend?”

“It’s not like there’s anything else to do here.” Steve draws his left leg out from under Billy’s legs and drapes it over both of Billy’s. Being trapped between Steve’s legs helps warm up Billy’s. His parka isn’t doing much past his waist. 

“You think the gruesome twosome will show up?” Billy asks. 

Steve shrugs. “Nancy and Jonathan have never been big on parties. They’ll probably be off doing whatever it is they do together.”

“Fuck?”

“Dude,” Steve admonishes. 

“What? Am I wrong?” Billy asks. He doesn’t know why he always baits Steve about Nancy. It’s like an itch he can’t stop scratching because Billy can’t understand what it is that makes Nancy so special to Steve. 

“It’s none of my business either way,” Steve says. He gives Billy a dirty look, “And I know you’re weirdly obsessed with protecting my honor or whatever, but let it go, man.”

“As if I give a shit about you or your honor,” Billy sneers. 

Steve laughs. “Billy, my best and dearest friend, don’t try and hide your love for me now.”

The only correct response is Billy grabbing Steve around the ears and burying his face against Billy’s parka, suffocating him until Steve kicks and wiggles his way free. He comes up gasping for air and throwing curse words at Billy like their physical projectiles. 

Billy cracks up, rolling off his side of the hood and heading into the Camaro so he can run the heat and warm up his cold fingers. Steve follows him in, still bitching, and it’s just another average Tuesday night.

~*~*~*~

At lunch on Thursday, Robin is pricklier than normal, refusing to engage with anyone who isn’t Steve. Which pisses Billy off because he’s used to having Steve’s pretty much undivided attention at lunch. In general, the table is a rambling argument over who the guys think will ask them to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. It’s the high school’s version of the Snow Ball.

Billy has never gone to a high school dance. They weren’t considered cool at his Cali school. Someone always held a backyard party instead on the same day. He isn’t planning on attending this one either. He has several variations of a polite decline planned in case one of the girls he’s previously dated get the bad idea of asking him to go. 

“I think Heather Holloway is going to ask me,” Eric boasts. 

Across from Steve, Robin’s expression darkens. Billy glances at Steve, he sees the side of Steve’s mouth pull down. It takes a second and then it clicks. He looks back up at Robin who is shoving the remains of her lunch into her brown bag. 

“See you in French,” Robin says brusquely to Steve before leaving the table. 

Steve slouches in his chair, flicking an annoyed look in Eric’s direction. “Heather doesn’t even know you exist,” Steve says harshly. 

Eric frowns. “Screw you, Harrington. She totally does. We were lab partners last year.”

“Oh, shit, I mean, that means you’re practically married, right?” Steve asks with incredible sarcasm. Billy is a little in awe, catching a glimpse at the former King Steve. 

A couple of the guys at the table laugh. “Dude, Harrington’s not wrong. I heard Heather was going to ask Billy, anyway,” Ian says. 

“Don’t worry, Pascway, I’ll remind her of that romantic time you spilled pig’s blood on her. She’ll be all over you in a second, I’m sure,” Billy taunts Eric. 

The pig’s blood story was infamous among the basketball team. Stupid Eric being all eager to prove to Heather how manly he was in biology last year during their dissection of a fetal pig. He tripped carrying over the tray and doused Heather in formaldehyde from the chest down. 

“Asshole,” Eric says with a scowl. The others laugh before the conversation drifts to who Marcia Nichols might ask. 

Billy doesn’t actually have anything against Eric, he thinks Eric’s pretty decent for Hawkins. But that’s just kind of how Billy is, territorial. And Steve is part of that territory now, so if Steve is pissed at Eric on Robin’s behalf, then Billy will be pissed at Eric on Steve’s behalf. 

Next to him, Steve balls up his empty paper bag and stands to go. Billy stands up too, carrying his tray over to the lunch counter before meeting Steve at the cafeteria doors that open onto the parking lot. They’ve still got a good ten minutes before next period. 

Billy waits until they’re in the Camaro, windows down so they can smoke, before bringing up what he saw. “So Robin, huh?”

Steve bristles. “What about her? She’s just having a bad day.”

“You remember my friend Benji?” Billy asks. 

Billy blames it on all the time they spend together, but Billy and Steve have been learning about each other from the ground up. Billy knows Steve and Tommy became best friends in first grade after Tommy was dared to eat a worm and actually did it, blowing little Stevie’s mind. Steve knows that Billy’s mom used to take him surfing even though his dad would bitch her out afterwards. They know the boring stories that shaped them into the assholes they are now. 

“What about him?” Steve asks, clearly distracted by his thoughts of Robin. 

“His sister, Camilla? We were friends with her too. Her and her girlfriend Kiley.” 

Silence hangs between them for a beat. Then Steve turns to him with big, hunted eyes. “You can’t tell anyone, Billy. This isn’t like California. You have no idea -”

“Hey,” Billy holds up his hands, “I won’t, man. I won’t. I’m just saying, if it’s something you want to talk about, I’m not going to judge.”

Steve looks at him warily. “But you’re such a dick about everything, always.” 

Billy shrugs, because he can’t exactly argue against that. “Sure, but this is different. Cami got hell when she and Kiley first went public. Her parents were threatening to kick her out of the house. It was ugly. But when Benji told them he’d go with her and they’d never see either of them again, her parents let up. Not like they were okay with it or anything, but Cami wasn’t in immediate danger of being thrown out on her ass. So, yeah, I can guess that shit is hard for Robin too.”

Steve chews on his bottom lip, glancing over at Billy every few seconds. “You’re such a trip, you know that, Hargrove? Like, you come off as this world class douchebag, but there’s like this other side to you that still a douchebag, but like a decent one?”

Billy hikes an eyebrow. “You going to write me a soliloquy, pretty boy?” 

Steve breathes out a laugh, the tension in his shoulders finally easing out. “In your dreams, Billy.” He reaches for the radio and turns it on, flicking over to some shitty pop station. Billy let’s him.

~*~*~*~

Steve’s homework is spread out across his dining room table that night, Billy faking his way through Steve’s French homework while Steve attempts to do his math work. They’ve got a six pack on the table between them, half empty. Steve’s parents aren’t home, per usual. It would be unsettling if it wasn’t so beneficial for their weekly homework and beer sessions.

“Did any of the girls ask you yet?” Steve asks, taking a break to glare at his remaining equations. 

“To the Sadie’s?” Billy asks, scrubbing out an incorrect conjugation. At this point, Billy’s got a decent handle of the main French verbs. 

“Duh.” Steve spins his pencil between his fingers. With his free hand, he pulls out a new beer and cracks it open. “Amy Collins asked me after practice today. Like she hung around the school waiting for it to be over and then cornered me when I went back to my school locker to get my backpack.”

Billy looks up surprised. “Wait, Amy? That mousy girl who’s in band with Robin?”

Steve nods as he takes a drink of his beer. 

Billy snickers. “So what’d you say, Romeo?”

“I told her I don’t do dances.”

“Ouch,” Billy says with a laugh. “How’d she take it.”

“Broke into nervous tears and ran out of the building. It was mortifying. I felt like the biggest asshole.” Steve sighs setting his beer down to run his hands through his hair. “But, like, what was I supposed to say? Yes when I don’t want to go with her? That would be so awkward.”

“Aw, come on, pretty boy. I’m sure you could have put the moves on Amy. If you were lucky, she might even have brought her flute and given you a solo performance,” Billy says, tonguing at his bottom lip suggestively. 

“I don’t even think that innuendo makes sense, but fuck you all the same, Billy,” Steve says, but he’s grinning. “And, like, what? You haven’t gotten any unwanted requests?”

Billy rolls his eyes. “Three. Today.”

“Show off,” Steve mutters, looking back at his math homework. 

“Vicky Pernell, who I took out when I first got here. Jillian Connor, who I think is pretty decent. And then some Sophomore I’ve never even seen before,” Billy lists. 

“And?” Steve prompts. “What did you tell them?”

“Well, Steve,” Billy says, fluttering his lashes like he did to the girls. “I told them I was flattered, but unfortunately I already had plans for that night.” Billy gives his most dashing smile paired with a wink. 

He watches in appreciation as the tips of Steve’s cheeks go pink. It would take a better man than Steve to be immune to Billy’s charms, Billy knows. “And do you?” Steve asks.

“Have plans?” Billy drops his pencil and leans back in the dining chair, stretching his arms above him. “Yeah, I do. Not going to the dance.”

Steve’s mouth drops open before he laughs. “Jesus. Really?”

“I don’t do high school dances, Harrington. This isn’t the fucking 1950s or some shit.” 

“Great,” Steve agrees readily. “So can I be part of these not going to he dance plans or what?”

“Or nothing,” Billy says. “You bring the beer and I’ll be your not date for the night.” Billy grins before his phrasing catches up with him. He’s about to backtrack and try to cover his faux-pas but Steve beats him to it. 

“I’ll buy the good stuff,” Steve promises. “We can go to Keller, the next town over, they’ve got this, like, vintage Drive-In and they’re supposed to be showing _The Thing_ that weekend -” and Steve’s off, rambling his way through elaborate plans for their not date. 

Billy feels suddenly winded. He fights off the feeling by trying to remember how to conjugate pouvoir.

~*~*~*~

After school on Friday, while Billy is waiting for Max to get let out of Hawkins Middle, Steve is tossing a tennis ball back and forth with Billy. They’ve taken to parking next to each other, so Steve is on the passenger side of his BMW and Billy’s on the driver’s side of the Camaro. They toss the tennis ball across the tops of the car and then bitch at each other if the throw doesn’t make it and ends up bouncing off the top of one of their roof’s.

When Robin walks up to them, she takes in the proceedings before flicking Steve in the back of the head. “This is a dumb game.”

Steve turns an offended look on her. “Maybe you’re just dumb.”

Billy inhales deeply at the lame comeback. Being a dick to people he likes seems to be a skill Steve saves just for Billy, much to his own detriment. “What do you want, Buckley?” Billy asks. 

They aren’t friends, but they tolerate each other for Steve’s sake. And maybe Billy will work a little harder at listening to her boring stories now that he knows - well, now that he knows Buckley wishes Heather would ask her to the Sadie’s Dance. 

Robin narrows her eyes at Billy before tuning him out completely. “Do you have plans this weekend, Steve? Because I was thinking we could do a Romero zombie marathon at my place.” She smiles hopefully up at him. 

Billy’s eyes flick over to Steve. They have plans. Plans to go to Ian’s probably lame house party. But Robin is clearly Steve’s better friend. Billy knows he’s overly invested in how things will turn out, which of them Steve will choose. 

And that means Billy is probably in trouble. The kind of trouble that Billy could only talk about with Jose. 

So Billy decides he’s going to get out of here before he has to hear Steve let him down and promise to spend the weekend with Buckley. Because it shouldn’t matter to Billy. He doesn’t need Steve to go with him to Ian’s party. He can go with any of the other guys, or ask some random girl to go with him, or go by himself. He can do any of those things. He should want to do any of those things. 

Except he doesn’t want to. If Steve ditches Billy this weekend, Billy knows he’ll spend Saturday holed up in his house working out, pushing himself a little too far so he can ignore the things he shouldn’t want. 

Billy chucks the tennis ball at Steve, catching him off guard. Steve fumbles the ball, accidentally sending it careening in Robin’s direction. Billy hides his smirk by ducking down and getting into the Camaro. “Later, children.” 

He revs out, pulling up directly and obnoxiously in front of the doors of the middle school. Billy even feels a little grateful when Max is one of the first ones out the doors.

~*~*~*~

Susan and Neil are out for the evening, again, leaving Billy on Max babysitting duty, again. Because his life is a hell hole. Five months, he tells himself. Five months and then everyone in his so called family can kiss his fucking ass.

Billy is camped out in front of the TV, blaring MTV in the hopes of disrupting Max’s supposed attempts to do her homework in her bedroom. It seems to be working because twenty minutes later she comes storming out of her room, homework in hand. She marches straight in front of the television, blocking The Cars’ music video for _Moving In Stereo_. It’s the only Cars song Billy likes but he’d deny it on pain of death. 

“Move, brat,” Billy snipes. 

Max places her hands on her hips, hopelessly crumpling her homework. “No.”

Billy glares at her. “Fuck off.”

“No,” she repeats. “Mom and Neil said you had to help me with my homework, remember?”

“No,” Billy scoffs. “I’m selectively deaf. It’s a rare genetic disorder. It means anytime someone mentions your name I can’t hear shit.” 

Max sneers at him. “Ha, ha, asshole.”

Billy bares his teeth in a sneer. “Go call your nerd friends and ask for help.”

Max sighs heavily. “Why will you help Steve with his homework but you won’t help me?”

“What the hell do you care?” Billy asks, starting to get really annoyed. 

“Because it’s not fair!” Max shakes her hair back behind her shoulder and squares herself up like she’s preparing for an actual fistfight. “We live together, and the law says we’re related, so we should at least pretend -”

Billy snaps the TV off. “I’m not pretending shit with you, Maxine. Five months and I’m gone and you’re nothing but an ugly memory in my rearview.” He stands up, ready to shove past her if she gets in his way. 

“Please,” Max says, the word coming out like it’s been dragged up from the very soles of her shoes. “Please help me, Billy?”

And he doesn’t want to. But there’s Steve’s stupid voice in the back of his head talking about Max’s nightmares. Talking about how she could have died and no one in their house would have even known it was a possibility. Talking about how Billy didn’t always have to be such a dick to the thirteen year old. 

Billy holds out his hand. Max eagerly shoves her crumpled papers over to him. Billy scans the sheet. It’s an English paper on _To Kill a Mockingbird_. “What do you want me to even do?”

Max takes a tentative step towards him, like she thinks Billy might take a cheap shot at her. When he doesn’t, she gently shoves at his shoulder to push him back on the couch. Grudgingly, Billy sits down. Max sits next to him, not close enough to touch, but enough to see the paper. 

“Can you help me with the spelling and grammar and stuff? My mom - “ Max bites her lip before continuing “- she used to help me with it before, uhm, before we came here. But now she’s busy a lot, so.” 

Billy knows what Max means. Since coming to Hawkins it's as if Neil and Susan have completely forgotten how having children work. You have to be around for them, in case they need you. Not that Billy has ever needed or had that kind of relationship with his own dad, but he can imagine Max and Susan sharing that closeness before her marriage to Neil Hargrove. 

“And what do I get out of this?” Billy asks. 

Max nervously tucks her hair behind her ear. “What do you want?”

Billy thinks it over for a moment. “The next time Neil starts to flip, you take the blame.”

Max nods right away, never even considering the proposal. It blows Billy’s mind. Neil’s only a monster in Billy’s eyes. The other two idiots he lives with see Neil as the breadwinner with the thin mustache. It makes Billy’s skin crawl. He almost takes back the bargain, but then thinks it doesn’t matter. Max will never fulfill her end, and even if she did, Neil would never be stupid enough to touch a hair on her perfect little head. 

So Billy holds out his hand. “Get me a pencil.”

Max jumps up and runs to the kitchen to rummage through their junk drawer. She returns victorious, handing a yellow number two over to Billy. As he starts to read through her paper and scratch in some changes, Max bumps her shoulder very delicately against his. “Thanks, Billy,” she says so quietly he almost doesn't hear her. 

Billy grunts in response. He’s not really doing this for her. He’s doing it for that ghost of Steve’s voice nagging at the back of his thoughts. 

An hour later Max is in her room, happily copying over his changes in her hand writing and Billy is thinking about calling up Denna Gulph, seeing if she wants to go to Sheady’s. It’s seven on Friday and Billy is not ready to be some loser sitting on his couch. Usually he’d be somewhere with Steve right now, but Billy hasn’t heard from him since Billy ditched him and Robin at school this afternoon. 

As he’s opening the coffee table drawer to look for the Hawkin’s student directory, the phone in the kitchen rings. 

“I’ll get it!” Max screams from her room. She races past, skidding on her bare feet into the kitchen and snatching the phone up from its cradle. “Hello? Hargrove-Mayfield residence?”

Billy throws a look in her direction at this greeting. Billy usually opts for, ‘This is Billy, whose this?’ Hargrove-Mayfield makes them sound like a family. A functioning family. It’s just wrong. 

“Oh,” Max says, her shoulders slumping. “Sure, whatever.” Then she holds the phone out towards Billy and screams, “It’s for you, dickhead!” 

Billy flips her off as he walks over and takes the phone from her. She sticks her tongue out and it’s like she thinks him helping her with her homework was some type of bonding experience. It wasn’t. 

“Yeah?” Billy says into the phone. 

“What’s up, buttercup?” Steve chirps from the other end. 

“Steve?” Billy asks.

“Yep,” Steve pops the ‘p.’

“Are you drunk?” Billy asks incredulously. It’s only seven which is pretty fucking early to be getting wasted, even for Hawkins. 

“A little,” Steve says, and Billy can perfectly picture him doing that thing where he pinches his thumb and index finger apart when they’re at a party and Steve is well on his way to being more than tipsy. 

“Do you need me to, like, pick you up?” Billy asks, baffled by this phone call. 

“No!” Steve protests before dissolving into giggles. “No. I just wanted to check. We’re still going to Ian’s party tomorrow, right?”

Billy hesitates before answering. “You aren’t hanging out with Buckley?”

“No,” Steve trills, the word spooling out like fresh toffee. “That’s why I’m just a little drunk. Because we’re doing the zombie marathon tonight. So I can go to the party tomorrow, with you. See?”

And Billy does see. Steve picked him over Robin. Even if he compromised for the zombie marathon tonight instead. “Yeah? And how are you enjoying those zombies, pretty boy?” Billy asks, his voice going smooth the same way it does when he’s flirting with the girls at school. 

Not that he’s flirting with Steve. But even if he was, Steve won’t recognize it, not when he’s drunk like this. 

“It’s gross,” Steve says, and Billy can picture his nose wrinkling in disgust like it does when Billy tells a particularly obscene joke. “The _Friday the 13th_ marathon you and I had was way better,” Steve enthuses. “Cuz like, the blood and guts is less real, you know? Like all bright red and stuff. And no gross squishy brain stuff.” Steve sighs like this is a real plight in his life. 

Billy laughs, soft and husky, because no one’s here to catch him out. Max is back in her room with her radio blaring and Billy’s got the kitchen to himself. “I don’t know, Steve, I remember you getting pretty distraught when that guy’s head got pulverized in Part 3.” 

“Billy,” Steve whines. “That was gross. Even you said so.” 

“I dunno, pretty boy,” Billy teases. “I was probably just trying not to make you feel bad.”

“Billy,” Steve whines again, but this time he’s cut off before Steve can wind him up further. 

“Yo, Hargrove, fuck off trying to steal my best friend,” Robin interrupts, apparently stealing the phone from Steve. “We’re having quality best friend time right now and you were purposefully not invited. So save your weird boys teasing each other shit for the party tomorrow.” 

And while Billy is reeling, trying to come up with a way to save face, and while he can hear Steve complaining vigorously in the background, Robin hangs up the phone with a definitive click. 

Holding the phone loosely in his hand, Billy runs his tongue against the sharp points of his teeth. He wants to call Jose. Desperately. But his dad told him as soon as they moved here that Billy was never to make a long distance call or Neil would be taking the money back through Billy’s belongings. 

So Billy hangs up the phone and stares at it before remembering his plan to go out with Denna Gulph. His gaze drifts toward the coffee table and the yellow student directory sitting on top of it. 

Max’s head pops around the corner of the hallway to their bedrooms. “Hey, Billy, since you're acting like an actual human tonight, will you watch _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ with me? I rented it but all of the boys are too scared to watch it.” She looks hopefully up at Billy. 

When he doesn’t immediately shoot her down, she excitedly holds out the rented VHS case. “I won’t even tell if you drink Neil’s beer while we watch it.”

“You never rat me out for that,” he points out.”

“Well, yeah,” she shrugs, “you never tell my mom when I throw out the leftovers of her grody tuna casserole.”

“Yeah, cuz it’s sick,” Billy says. 

Max practically beams. “Exactly. So, you’ll watch it with me, right?” She waggles the case at him. 

Feeling like he’s been replaced by a pod person, Billy turns to the fridge and pulls out a cold beer and a Dr. Pepper for Max. He makes sure to chuck it at her head when he heads into the living room. Max calls him an asshole when she has to duck and the Dr. Pepper hits the TV standing with rattling force, but she’s still smiling. 

And it’s not completely awful watching the movie with her. It’s not fun like it would be if Billy was watching it with Steve or some of the other guy’s from basketball, but it’s not the worst either. And when Max cringes toward him during the bloodier parts he feels this weird twinge pride that she doesn’t cover her eyes.

“You’re not going to have nightmares, right, Maxine?” he taunts in a whisper when Max gasps and twitches toward him so her face is pressed against the sleeve of his shirt. 

“I’m not a pussy,” Max whispers back fiercely. 

He feels that twinge of pride again. He slouches down lower on the couch so it’s easier for her to press close when Freddy starts hacking someone to death or doing something else gruesome like slicing off his own green spurting fingers. “I’m not going to give a shit if you wake up screaming,” Billy warns. 

“Same to you, dickface,” Max says. 

Billy spends the rest of the movie figuring out what he can do in the middle of the night to scare the living shit out of Max without getting caught and consequently in trouble with their collective parents. The night is a mildly pleasant experience all in all.

~*~*~*~

Saturday afternoon, Billy and Steve meet up to get burgers from Marco’s, the only burger joint in town, before clambering into the Camaro and leaving Steve’s BMW in the parking lot. They drive out to the Quarry, Steve fucking with the radio dial the entire time.

Apparently, the Quarry used to be a hot spot in Hawkins, but after Will Byers mysterious drowning turned out to not be a drowning, it’s a no-go zone for the majority of Hawkins residents. Billy has heard all about the original invasion of alien creatures, the one that happened long before he and Max rolled into town. It sounds like a fucking nightmare and Billy is more than glad to have missed it. 

Steve grabs their sodas and Billy carries their bag of burgers and fries. They hop up on the trunk of the Camaro and split their food. Steve keeps edging these weird little looks in Billy’s direction and Billy’s half concerned he’s, like, breaking out or some shit. 

“What?” he finally snaps. 

Steve jerks his eyes to Billy’s face like he’s shocked he’s been caught out. Subtle is not one of Steve’s main skill sets. “Nothing.”

Billy rolls his eyes unimpressed. “Liar.”

Steve picks through the fries like it’s a really hard decision which one to choose. He taps his sneakers against the Camaro’s bumper. He fiddles with the cuffs of his Member’s Only jacket. 

Billy kicks Steve as hard in the ankle as he can. Steve yelps, jerking his leg upward to safety and overturning his cup of Coke in the process. It hits the gravel with a gushing splash. Billy laughs because he’s a dick and knows it. 

“Jackass,” Steve bitches before swiping Billy’s cup and slurping from it obnoxiously. 

“Harrington,” Billy says pointedly, not deterred by Steve’s avoidance tactics. Billy stuffs his newly acquired scarf down into his parka a little, trying to keep the breeze rolling in off the Quarry from finding its way to the bare skin of his neck. 

“Don’t get mad?” Steve asks. 

“That’s a stupid way to start,” Billy huffs. “How about I start at pissed and you try to talk me down?”

Steve grimaces. “Lame. But, like, at Marco’s today?” He darts another nervous look at Billy. “When you were grabbing your wallet out of your stupidly tight jeans, I saw your wrist?”

Billy’s brow furrows before he clutches his invisible pearls against his chest. “How forward of you, Stephen!”

Steve snorts a laugh before his face gets serious again. “Sure, whatever, dickbag, but like, your wrist . . . it didn’t look so hot?”

It takes a moment before it clicks into place. Last night, when Neil and Susan got home, Billy had been blaring Metallica in his room. It wasn’t a big deal. It was ten and Max was still up reading Nancy Drew, because she’s an actual dweeb. Except, Neil hadn’t seen it that way. 

No, Billy’s old man had seen it as a blatant disregard for Billy’s little sister’s entitlement to a peaceful household. Max shouldn’t have to listen to the devil’s music. Billy could fill his mind with that garbage, but Hargrove Sr. would be damned if his step-daughter was subjected to Billy’s unending stupidity. 

The bullshit of it was, if his dad had just asked Billy to turn the radio down, or off, he would have. It wasn’t a big fucking deal. But it had been one of those nights, and Neil was so goddamn touchy about Max, like he was still trying to impress Susan with his whole Daddy Warbucks routine. So when Billy had sighed before getting up to turn off his radio, his dad had grabbed him by the wrist, squeezed until the bones seemed to pinch together. He had jerked Billy in close and hissed those two words Billy hated most: respect and responsibility. 

Sitting next to Steve, close enough that their knees knock into each other, Billy taps distracted fingers against his jeans. He debates for a bit longer before tugging off his fingerless glove, handing it off to Steve to hold onto, and shoves up the sleeve of his parka and shirt. 

In the bright winter’s sunlight, Billy’s tanned wrist is ringed with a faded red circle. It wouldn’t bruise. It had stuck around longer than Billy had thought it would. Billy tugs his cuffs back into place and takes his glove back from Steve. 

“It’s nothing,” Billy says with a shrug. 

“Uhm, I mean,” Steve protests, “who's the liar now?”

Billy takes a bite out of his burger which is quickly getting cold thanks to Hawkins shitty winter weather. “My dad was mad. He got a bit rough.” Billy shrugs again. 

Steve stiffens next to him. “You should - like - don’t you think you should tell someone? Like, at school?”

Billy turns to stare at Steve like he’s lost his mind. “Why the fuck would I do that?”

Steve’s Bambi eyes try to outdo themselves with earnest concern. “Uhm, hello? Because - Jesus, Billy! Because that’s so not fucking okay?” He jabs his hand toward Billy’s wrist. 

Billy hasn’t talked to anyone about his dad since he was in California. And then it had been commiserating bitching about shitty parents. So Billy doesn’t know how to talk to Steve about this. He doesn’t know if he wants to. But Steve is looking at him with his stupidly pretty, brown eyes and Billy caves. 

“Okay, listen up, Harrington, because I’m only going to talk to you about this once.” Billy shifts on the hood, pushing the remains of their lunch into the paperbag and dropping it off the trunk to the gravel road. He turns so he’s facing Steve directly. 

“I know my dad is a piece of shit. I’ve known that since I was five and my mom was crying, sobbing, begging my dad not to spank me with a belt. I knew it when he would toss my mom around the house when he got mad at her for standing up for me. I knew it when my mom left and promised to come back for me. This is not new or surprising to me.” 

Steve’s got his bottom lip sucked between his teeth and Billy can tell he’s chewing it raw to keep himself from interrupting Billy’s little speech. 

“I don’t know what it is with my dad. I don’t know if he just hated me on sight the day I was born, but every second I’ve been around, he’s done nothing but tear me down. I can’t do anything right and maybe if my mom had loved me less, I would have ended up a scared little boy. But my mom loved me fierce and taught me that if I wasn’t going to look out for myself, I couldn’t count on anyone else to. She fought back every time my dad ragged on my long hair, on how much I liked surfing, on the friends I picked. She taught me to fight back against him. Not so much with punches and kicks, but by taking his hits and not letting it change what I wanted.” 

Billy flicks the earring hanging from his left ear. “My dad tried to rip it out after I got it pierced. We had a big fucking tussle and when it was over, I jabbed my earring back into the bloody piercing. So it stays. When I wanted my hair like this, he threw a pair of scissors on my desk and told me to cut it or get out. So I started packing a bag. When he grabbed my hair and cut a chunk out himself, I left it like that and evened the rest of my hair to match. So now I wear my hair how I want.”

Steve’s mouth is a tight line now, his long fingers curled up into fists against his jeans. It’s weird to see someone getting all upset on Billy’s behalf. There hasn’t ever been anyone except his mom and that was a long time ago now. 

“My dad thinks he’s a hardass, and he’s not wrong. But I’ll be damned if I let him bulldoze me over. My mom wouldn’t have wanted that. And maybe she wouldn’t have wanted me to turn out quite so much like him, but she was kind of a bitch in her own right, just never to me. Only to my dad and other assholes like him. So I think maybe she’d get it too.”

Billy smiles hard and mean, the way he’s learned to since his mom died. “I’m not saying I love my dad, because that would be a fucking lie. I hate him. I hate everything about him. And all that matters to me is getting away from him as soon as I graduate. But until then, I’m just gonna deal like I have been for the past seventeen years. Every day I wake up pissed at my dad, at my shitty house, and being stuck here. And some days I’m fucking furious. But I’m finally looking down a five month deadline and that’s all that matters. That’s all that fucking matters.” 

He pulls up his sleeves again, taps the dull red mark on his wrist. “So this doesn’t mean shit to me. Because five months from now I’m going to forget who Neil Hargrove even is.” 

Steve drags his eyes up from the mark on Billy’s wrist to his eyes. Then his gaze dips down, just for a second, and Billy knows Steve’s staring at his mouth. Staring at the curve of his lips the same way the girls he dates do just before they close their eyes and cross their fingers, hoping Billy will lean in and kiss them. 

Something wild flutters in Billy's chest. Something wild and infinitely dangerous. Steve isn’t Jose. This isn’t L.A.. So Billy tucks his hand into the pocket of his parka and pulls out his pack of Marlboro. He holds it between them until Steve reaches out and takes one. 

“We’re done with this, right?” Billy says. 

Steve takes out his own lighter and lights the ends of their smokes. “Yeah, we’re done, Billy.” 

“Which makes it your turn. Why do you give Nancy and Jonathan a pass?” 

Steve blinks like Billy doesn’t ask the same question nearly every time they're alone somewhere playing their honesty game. Steve slips his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and tilts a look up at the blue sky. 

“I dunno, man. Because things not playing out like they did seems kind of shitty to me? Like, yeah, what Nancy did on Halloween and taking off with Jonathan the next day, it was shit. But, like, wouldn’t it kind of been worse if she just kept faking it? Never told me she thought we were bullshit? Let me think I was going to plan this picture perfect future for us? And, like, Jonathan’s never had anything good in his whole life. So, like, if he needs Nancy for that, then whatever. I’m not going to be in Hawkins forever, hopefully, and at least after Nancy I know that I don’t just want a girl to fuck around with. I want one to, you know, fall in love with.” Steve shrugs helplessly like he’s drowning in the deep end and hoping Billy is going to pull him out. 

“God,” Billy sighs dramatically, wrinkling his nose in disgust, “you’re like the sappiest guy I know. It’s fucking gross, man.”

Steve balks. He stares at Billy for a brief moment of betrayal before busting up laughing. “Jesus, you’re such an asshole, Hargrove!”

Billy grins sharp and mean. “Don’t fucking forget it, Harrington.” Then he jabs Steve hard in in ribs. “If we see those fuckers at the party tonight, I’m fucking spilling my beer on both of them. I don’t give a shit. They’re both fucking twats.”

“Twats!” Steve shouts before cracking up harder than before. “Fuck, Billy. What even was Hawkins before you came?”

“I really don’t know,” Billy agrees. “A shithole, obviously.”

Steve’s laughing even as he kicks at Billy’s thigh, trying to shove him off the trunk.

~*~*~*~

Billy dumps Max off at the Wheelers’ before driving over to Steve’s and picking him up for Ian’s party. Steve looks good, no polo in sight, just his jacket and a maroon sweater that is really doing things for the warm brown of his hair. Of course, Steve’s jeans are still a travesty to his ass.

Steve taps the hood of the Camaro twice before opening the door and sliding in. He tilts a grin in Billy’s direction. “How lame do you think this party will be?”

“If there’s free beer, it’s a fucking great party,” Billy says. 

The party is decidedly lame. Not that anyone in Hawkins seems to realize this. Then again, all the parties in Hawkins are lame, so this is nothing new or surprising to Billy. But the beer is free, even if it’s cheap, so it’s a great party nonetheless. 

He and Steve are lingering at the edges of the kitchen, watching the seniors and juniors of Hawkins High trying and mostly failing to make a move on each other. Billy points his red solo cup in Josh Garner's direction. “Think he’ll puke before he gets to asking Lainey out?”

Steve laughs into his own cup, eyes bright with enjoyment. “Fingers fucking crossed.”

Since arriving in Hawkins, Billy has made a spectacle of being the center of attention at Hawkins lame parties. How else was he supposed to survive the sheer boredom and idiocy of Hawkins if he wasn’t drunk with four girls panting after him? Billy loves the attention. Billy has always loved attention, good or bad, as long as it’s focused on him, Billy lives for it. 

But hanging out with Steve means Billy has Steve’s undivided attention from the second they meet up until they break apart again. Steve’s attention has become the only kind Billy craves like nicotine. 

“Come on,” Steve says, grabbing Billy by the back pocket and towing him towards the door to the garage. “Let’s get a smoke.”

They wind their way through the babbling, drinking groups of teenagers. The garage door is propped open with a cinder bock. A bunch of the basketball guys are milling around the space. In the center of the garage, a ping pong table has been fucked around with for beer pong. Beer pong is the one thing Billy will admit to being impressed with in Hawkins. Billy probably would have been less impressed if he hadn’t been naturally good at it. 

Ian’s sister had apparently come home this past summer from her sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania all jazzed about the beer pong craze. Tommy’s holding his ping pong paddle, handle broken off, bent almost in half over the table, readying to face off against Eric. 

Billy and Steve lean against Ian’s dad’s workbench to watch the game. Out of the two of them, Eric has more talent with his paddle, getting two cup hits and two sinks out of their first six serves. As Eric sets up the next serve, the guys around the table start to lose interest. 

“You suck, Tommy,” Hardy, one of the point guards, says as he pushes off the wall and heads back into the house. 

The group laughs and the back of Tommy’s neck goes red. “He’s going to be worse now,” Steve says. “Whenever Tommy’s pissed he plays like shit. Has since we were kids. It’s how I always made sure to beat him at shit like touch football.” 

Billy has to squint to try and picture Steve playing any kind of football. Steve catches him at it and smacks him in the stomach before grabbing his empty solo cup and heading across the garage to fill both their cups at the keg in the corner by the garage door. 

It’s something like providence that Tommy sees Steve. Billy sees the second Tommy notices him, the way his attention snaps to his old friend like a shot rubber band. It sets Billy’s nerves on edge. He knows that kind of awareness. It’s the kind that comes before a fight. 

“The fuck you doing here, Steve-O?” Tommy calls across to him, totally ignoring Eric and their game. Eric’s hit lands with a splash in one of Tommy’s cups. Tommy picks it up without paying attention and downs it. “Shouldn’t you be out babysitting for Byers so he can fuck your ex?”

There are a few snickers from the guys, but mostly there’s awkward shuffling of sneakers against the garage’s cement floor. Billy straightens up from the workbench, gaze trained on Tommy, but flicking to Steve to see his reaction. 

Steve’s shoulders tense before he turns around, two brimming solo cups in hand. “Carol still with you or did she decide she could get better service from her shower head?”

Billy barks out a laugh that sets the other guys off laughing. If Tommy’s neck was red before, it’s flaming scarlet now. “Fuck you, Harrington!” Tommy spits. He grabs one of the pong cups and throws it at Steve. 

A shower of beer scatters across the garage floor before the plastic cup hits Steve harmlessly on the chest and falls quietly to the ground.

“For fuck’s sake,” Eric groans, shoving angrily at the beer pong table. “I just wanted to bust Tommy’s ass, not get caught up in all this cry baby bitch drama.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Tommy pitches another cup in Eric’s direction. “All I heard this afternoon from you was how Steve might have been big shit last year, but this year he’s nothing but a bitch whose so desperate to stick his head up Buckley’s skirt -”

Both of the red cups Steve’s hold go sailing through the air, a perfect arc that sends the beer pouring out on Tommy before Steve himself hurtles across the room and throws Tommy to the floor. 

Billy throws an arm around the nearest guy, setting the precedent that the boys are going to punch it out on their own. A cheer goes up in the garage as everyone crowds in a half circle around Tommy and Steve. “Anyone fucking touches one of them and your ass is grass, got that?” Billy instructs. 

“Kill him, Harrington!” someone shouts. 

“Kick him in the balls, Hagan!” someone else yells. 

“Fucking can’t stand you!” Steve grabs Tommy’s shirt and rips it up over his head, pinning him to the ground. Steve starts slugging him hard in the gut.

But Tommy’s not taking it lying down. He throws his head back, smashing into Steve’s pretty face. Steve topples over and Tommy climbs on top, pins Steve’s down and clenches Steve’s shirt in his hands. “You fucking freak!” Tommy yells. “You fucking loser! Wheeler didn’t love you. Mommy and daddy don’t love you. Nobody can fucking stand you!”

And really, that shit is just not going to fly. Billy rolls up his sleeves before pulling his arm back and punching Tommy solidly in the back of the head. Tommy pitches forward, shocked and hit hard. Steve uses the moment to scrabble out from under him, nose bleeding. 

“Hey!” one of the guys complains. “I thought you said no interfering.”

“I fucking lied, Doug,” Billy says before he turns and punches Doug in the jaw. 

From there, it turns into a full on melee. No one’s paying attention to Steve and Tommy as they brawl it out on the ground. Well, Billy’s paying attention in between dodging hits from Doug and throwing jabs at whoever’s nearest him. Seems like the entire Hawkins basketball team has a lot of pent up rage they need to let out. Might be due to their losing season. Might be because this town fucking sucks. Billy’s betting on the latter. 

As Billy ducks a haymaker from Mark Donner, a permanent bench warmer for the team, he sees Steve and Tommy roll beneath the beer pong table. Steve’s got one hand fisted in Tommy’s shirt collar and the other pulled back to deliver a shiner. Tommy’s straight up clawing at Steve’s face. It’s wild. And the whole while, they are just screaming at each other.

Billy never fought any of the guys in L.A.. Like, sure, they scuffled now and then when things were shit at home and someone said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But nothing like what Harrington and Hagan have going on. 

They were best friends, Steve’s told him that, and so, like, apparently they’ve got shit to work through with each other. He gets that Hagan’s pissed Steve dropped him like a hot bag of shit after the break up with Wheeler. He also gets that the only person who tried harder than Billy himself to piss Steve off is Tommy. 

Vaguely, as he grabs Donner by the hair and throws him toward the workbench, Billy hopes this doesn’t repair their friendship. Billy doesn’t really think he wants to share Steve with anyone. Especially someone who used to be the closest person to Steve. 

So as Steve knees Tommy in the side, Billy takes a clip to the chin that he ignores. He hits the guy, turns out it's Eric, so Billy throws an extra punch on Buckley's behalf. Then he rounds the beer pong table and gets Tommy by the ankle, dragging him, and with him Steve, out from under it. 

Billy looks down at Steve, smiling brightly, licking the blood from his lip and pushing his sweaty curls off his forehead. “I’m ready to bounce, Harrington, so can you wrap this up?”

Steve stares at Billy, caught off guard for a moment, then breaks out laughing. He rolls over, hunched on top of Tommy whose using this brief respite to suck down noisy lungfuls of air. “Sorry, Tommy,” Steve pants. “Gotta jet.” Then he smashes his palm down on Tommy’s face, like Tommy isn’t even worth a final punch. 

Steve’s a little unsteady getting to his feet so Billy reaches out and grabs him by the elbow, centering him. Steve slings his arm around Billy’s shoulders, using him to prop himself up just a bit. Together, they weave their way out of wayward punches and back into the main house. They stop to let Billy snag his parka from the coat pile and then they break out into the cold Hawkins night. 

In the Camaro, Steve sags back into the passenger seat. He probes at his left eye gently and hisses. “Fuck. Why do I always get hit so hard in the face?”

Billy tosses him a sideways glance as he turns the keys in the ignition. “Because you can’t block for shit, duh.”

Steve blinks widely. “Hey, I can block, man. I can fucking block. You know, it’s just, you and Byers caught me by surprise and -”

“You fucking hit me first!” Billy laughs delightedly. “How could me hitting you back be a surprise?”

“You broke a plate over my head!”

“You should have broken a plate over Tommy’s dick,” Billy says sagely. 

Steve cracks up so hard he’s got tears sliding down his cheeks. “What the fuck does that even mean, Billy?”

Billy curls his tongue between his teeth and twists the wheel of the Camaro so they are heading toward the Quarry. He’s got a six pack in the trunk and a fresh carton of smokes in his jacket. “It means Hagan fucking sucks and you should have bashed his face in months ago.”

“Oh my god,” Steve moans, dropping dramatically back against his seat. “Then why the fuck were you teaming up with him when you got here?”

Billy shrugs. “Cuz you weren’t playing ball, pretty boy.”

“Uhm, hello? I had a lot of shit going on,” Steve says. He lolls his head to the side and grins blearily at Billy. 

Billy can’t help but reach out and thumb away the wet blood from beneath Steve’s nose. “You’re going to look like a real piece of art tomorrow.”

“At least this time I’m not going to have to hear how Jonathan Byers beat me up again.” Steve flips down the visor and looks in the mirror to catalogue the damage.

“What are you parents going to say?” Billy asks. He knows what Neil will say. ‘Another fight, William? Dragging our name through the trash, boy. That’s all you ever do.’ Sticks and stones and all that. 

Steve wrinkles his nose. “Come on, Billy. They aren’t even going to be around to see this shit.” He motions to his face. 

Billy nods. “Not a bad gig.”

“And you?” There’s a hint of worry hiding in the question. 

“Nothing major. Little Billy’s been getting in fist fights since I started going to daycare. Just part of the package.” He grins in Steve’s direction, feels his split lip pull. 

Steve reaches out, hesitates, then uses his thumb to gently wipe the blood from Billy’s lip. “Yeah, you’re a real package alright.”

“I’m a fucking gift,” Billy agrees. Steve’s thumb lingers on Billy’s lip; Billy tastes Steve’s salty skin against his tongue. It’s headier than any of the beer he’s had to night. 

The Quarry is looming up, flat and black in front of them. Billy’s easing off the gas. The Camaro is rolling to a stop. 

And Steve’s leaning over the stick shift, his thumb dipped into Billy’s mouth. “A gift,” he repeats, blinking his Bambi eyes, gaze locked on Billy’s. 

“Want to unwrap me, pretty boy?” Billy’s talking but not thinking. His entire brain is locked on Steve’s plush mouth and how good his lips would feel against Billy’s, how hot his tongue would be against Billy’s own. 

Steve moves his thumb to rub against Billy’s front teeth like he’s fucking mesmerized by Billy or some shit. Billy doesn’t move, stops breathing for a minute, afraid to do anything that might scare Steve off. 

“Hey,” Steve says softly, “is that you, Hargrove, or am I dreaming?”

Billy exhales a ghost of a laugh before grabbing at the collar of Steve’s jacket and reeling him in for a messy kiss. 

Steve wastes exactly zero time before crawling directly into Billy’s lap. There’s barely enough room, Steve’s got to be crushed against the steering wheel and Billy can’t move his legs an inch. It’s fucking perfect. 

Billy licks enthusiastically into Steve’s mouth, his hands shoving at Steve’s shirt until he can get his fingers wrapped around Steve’s warm skin. Steve curls both hands into Billy’s hair, tugging harshly at Billy’s curls, then dragging his fingers against Billy’s skull like he wants to fuse the two of them together. 

Pulling apart for air, lips spit and blood slick, Billy holds Steve’s jaw tightly between his hands. “You ever done this before, pretty boy?”

Steve shakes his head, his nose bumping against Billy’s. “Never wanted to. But you’re everything I want, so.” Steve grins and shrugs. 

Billy smiles sharply. “I’m not a one time kind of boy,” he warns. 

Steve laughs, softening the deadly sound with another bruising kiss. “I was getting ready to follow Nancy to college. Hate to break it to you, tough guy, but you’re pretty much fucking stuck with me now. Gonna ninja roll into the Camaro’s shitty trunk and hide away when you roll outta here.” 

“The Camaro’s trunk is not shitty,” Billy bitches. He smacks a hard kiss above Steve’s black eye in revenge. 

“Fucking ow, Billy,” Steve whines, pushing him away a little. Then he pulls Billy back in close by the hood of his damn parka. “You ever done this before?”

“Yeah,” Billy says softly. “Once or twice. In L.A.. With Jose.”

Steve taps a restless finger against Billy’s neck as he seems to think this over. Billy tries not to get defensive as the silence stretches between them. Then Steve huffs a sigh. “Should I be, like, jealous of this guy?”

Billy’s eyes pop wide and he laughs once. Steve won’t look at him, his eyes off to the side, like he’s really worried this is a possibility. Billy tightens his grip on Steve’s waist and tugs him impossibly closer. “No, pretty boy, you should not be jealous. I messed around with Jose because I realized I liked boys. I want to mess around with you because I like you. Just you,” he tacks on. 

Steve grins hot and slow. “Are you going to teach me how to pull these curls right?” He twines a lock Billy’s blonde hair around his finger. 

“Whatever you want, baby,” Billy whispers. He leans in and sucks a mean hickey beneath the hinge of Steve’s jaw. 

“Sunshine and masculinity,” Steve murmurs. “Shit,” he groans as Billy sucks with particular force, “are you trying to eat me, Hargrove?”

Billy laughs, licking his lips as he pulls back. “Shut up and kiss me, Harrington.”

Because Steve is a little shit, he salutes him before curling close to Billy and kissing him like the King of Hawkins he used to be. And for the first time, Billy doesn’t think Hawkins is the worst place he could be stuck.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://wistful-wisterias.tumblr.com)


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